A colourful blend of east and west

There are nine million bicycles in Beijing, as the popular song goes, but Beijing or China, for that matter, is more, much more than bicycles, chopsticks, the Forbidden City and the Great Wall.

An exhibition of contemporary Chinese watercolours, being held at the China Cultural Centre in Melita Street, Valletta, illustrates other interesting facets of China.

The 44 works on display show the prolific mastery of the watercolour technique that has been achieved by Chinese painters gaining international acclaim. The artists show a great predilection of capturing those one-off moments in the life of villagers and the smaller towns that make one stop and think how lovely life can be if one were to take a break and look at the smaller world of the folk that live a quieter, slower pace of life.

The watercolours show streetscapes, canalscapes, countryside nooks and crannies and still life.

If you have visited Beijing and Shanghai and have been impressed by the clusters of skyscrapers and top-of-the-range hotel chains, this exhibition will throw open a door that will entice you to visit China once more but get closer to mother earth and look closer to the simple life certain people live. The exhibition, which has toured China and is now being held around the world, is open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and between 3 and 5 p.m. It will run until July 1.

The writer of a preface to the exhibition catalogue says: "More than a 100 years of experimentation and practice in watercolour painting have made it one of the most popular art forms in China.

"In recent years, the artistic ability and global scope of China's watercolour painting have developed remarkably and many talented artists have earned reputations worldwide for their work".