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Paintings Composed of Miniature Calligraphy Exhibited in Beijing

Paintings Composed of Miniature Calligraphy (wei shu xie hua) refers to paintings whose marks are composed of characters written in miniature Chinese calligraphy. Chu Chengming is the country's No. 1 artist of this form. His works were exhibited in the Art Museum of the China Millennium Monument November 11-15.

Such paintings are newcomers in the field of art, which formally came into being in late 20th century. It combines calligraphy and painting, but has high demands for both art forms. Chu can write more than 10 characters on a sesame seed without the aid of magnifiers and is also a master of traditional brushwork painting.

The exhibition showed more than 100 of Chu's works, including all his best works, such as the Flower and Bird Painting composed of 50,000 characters and A Hundred Arhats composed of 110,000 characters. In the Flower and Bird Painting, there are Chinese poems on the themes of flowers and birds. Similarly, visitors can read Buddhist scriptures in paintings of arhats and the Daodejing in the paintings of Laozi.