Significance and Discovery of Re-visiting Art Museums’ Collections
A glimpse of Masterpiece Assemble-Collection Treasure Exhibition in National Art Museum of China

At the beginning of the Chinese New Year of Gui-Si, the National Art Museum of China hosted the Exhibition of Art Treasures---- Selected Masterpieces from 10 Art Museums in China. The exhibition for the first time aggregated masterpieces collected by China’s 10 major museums, that is the National Art Museum of China, China Art Museum of Shanghai, the provincial art museums of Jiangsu, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Hubei, the Guan Shanyue Art Museum of Shenzhen, Art Museum of Beijing Fine Art Academy, Art Museum of Central Academy of Fine Arts as well as Zhejiang Art Museum. The exhibition has not only shown to us a series of classic collections from different art museums in China, the concerted efforts in research and planning, but also the unprecedented new picture in the cause of development and prospect of China’s art museums.

From the exhibition you can read out the major context of development of Chinese art history in the 20th century. It provided for us with a visual way to understand the historical development of China’s modern art. In the 20th century, Chinese fine art reached a great achievement in various fields, from oil painting to Chinese traditional painting, from engraving to design, each category of art has its unique imprint of the time and the region. In this exhibition, the art works from different region and different time conducted a deep-level dialogue that gave us a perfect time to know the greatest achievements of these different forms of art won in the 20th Century.

The 20th Century occupied a very special position in the history of fine art in China. The Chinese art experienced great changes and won great success during that period. The 20th Century was the period of time that Chinese people experienced hardship of living, political turmoil and frequent war. But it was also a period of time that brewing great changes of history, a golden time for Chinese fine art. Since then, Chinese traditional painting has become more mature, the Western art like oil painting has began to enter the Chinese art sequence. So, it can be said that this period like Renaissance in Europe was an epoch-making art peak of Chinese Art.

　　Like the study of Renaissance is very important in the study of Western art history, the study of Chinese fine art history of the 20th century is very important in the study of Chinese fine art history. Of course, for the rich connotation of art history of the 20th century, one exhibition is not capable of rendering, nor a piece of written article can give a full explanation. The art history of this period has yet to have deeper research and discovery. However, the exhibition has given us a good opportunity for further studies. It is quite obviously to see from this exhibition that most of the art galleries in China began their art collections in the late 19th century and the early 20th century, which was quite later than the museums in the west countries. Because of this reason, to study China’s 20th century art is the only way to take for those researchers on China’s art history and those who are working in the art museums .