This is where to touch the timeless pulse of Chinese culture

Hangzhou has recently announced the third batch of 10 Hangzhou Humanistic Experience Sites for International Exchange across the city. Located in urban areas, villages, historical sites, and nature reserves, they offer international visitors easy, engaging ways to understand Hangzhou through culture, ecology, technology, and everyday life.

Among these places, the Collection Hall of A Comprehensive Collection of Ancient Chinese Paintings, located in the Innovation Center of Liangzhu Mengqi Town, Liangzhu Subdistrict, Yuhang District, Hangzhou, covers a total construction area of approximately 13,200 square meters, with more than 8,600 square meters of exhibition space. The Collection Hall is open to the public free of charge and serves as an open cultural space dedicated to promoting cultural and artistic exchange as well as public aesthetic education.

The Collection Hall presents the achievements of the major national cultural project, A Comprehensive Collection of Ancient Chinese Paintings. This project systematically documents the development of Chinese painting from the pre-Qin period and the Han and Tang dynasties through the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. It brings together 12,405 Chinese painting works (sets) from 263 museums and cultural institutions worldwide, covering a wide range of materials including paper, silk (brocade and damask), and hemp. These publications are the world’s most complete, best illustrated, and most extensive collections of illustrated Chinese paintings to date.

Rather than presenting a conventional display of original artworks, the Collection Hall offers a three-dimensional presentation based on the research results of the project. Visitors can view high-resolution color proofs of paintings to examine brushwork and pigments up close, and explore 3D-printed replicas of grotto sculptures displayed alongside Buddhist painting images from Dunhuang and Heishuicheng, tracing the development of Chinese formative and Buddhist art.

Through digital scenography, multimedia projections, and immersive interactive installations, figures, landscapes, and scenes from ancient paintings are reintroduced into contemporary exhibition spaces. Visitors are invited to step into the pictorial world and experience the artistic charm of traditional Chinese painting in a more intuitive way.

A Comprehensive Collection of Ancient Chinese Paintings Exhibition on Song Dynasty Paintings presents works from the Five Dynasties, the Northern and Southern Song, as well as the Liao and Jin periods, together with images from Dunhuang and Heishuicheng. This broader context helps visitors understand the cultural meaning of the “Song Rhyme” within Chinese art history.

The Unheard Melody: Music in Song Dynasty Paintings is one of the Collection Hall’s most distinctive thematic exhibitions. Drawing on 181 “musical images” from the Complete Song Dynasty Paintings , the exhibition combines reconstructed ancient music, newly composed works, and digital technology. Through three sections—“Harmony Through Music”, “Elegance and Refinement in Music”, and “Music in Common Life”—it reveals the role of music in ritual, scholarly life, and everyday society during the Song dynasty, allowing visitors to “hear” the Song while viewing the paintings.

This technology-enhanced approach has also made the exhibition accessible to international visitors. Turzhan, a student from Kazakhstan, noted after experiencing the AI-based interactive and immersive installations that professional knowledge of Chinese painting or music was not required to enjoy the exhibition. As a foreign visitor, he strongly recommended the Collection Hall, highlighting its effective combination of aesthetic experience and cultural understanding.

Overall, the Collection Hall transforms the scholarly achievements of “A Comprehensive Collection of Ancient Chinese Paintings” into a public-facing cultural space. Through exhibitions and digital presentation, it brings Chinese painting from books and databases into everyday experience, offering visitors an accessible way to engage with Chinese art and civilization.

Collection Hall of A Comprehensive Collection of Ancient Chinese Paintings

Address

#138 Xujiawan Road, Liangzhu Subdistrict, Yuhang District, Hangzhou

杭州市余杭区良渚街道徐家湾路138号

Opening Hours

9:00–17:00(enter before 16:00),

Tuesday to Sunday

周二至周日 9:00–17:00（16:00停止入场）

（Close on Monday, open on holidays）

（周一闭馆，节假日照常开放）

Contact

0571-89386600 / 19032233395

Source: Hangzhoufeel