The Art of Chinese Calligraphy on the Great Tea Road: Personal Exhibition of Master Liu Hongsheng

Liu Hongsheng’s personal exhibition The Art of Chinese Calligraphy on the Great Tea Road opens on 31 July in the St Michael’s Castle. The exhibition is timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Russia and with the first of the cross years of culture between the countries. The outstanding contemporary master of calligraphy professor Liu Hongsheng is also referred to as an “ambassador of happy calligraphy.” The exhibition is aimed at introducing this ancient art, which is a significant part of the traditional spiritual culture of China, to Russian audience. The language of art can make the distant close and the unfamiliar understandable. Therefore, the new exhibition will undoubtedly contribute to mutual understanding between Russian and Chinese people. Liu Hongsheng’s unique works are accompanied by an educational cartoon created by the calligrapher himself.

Liu Hongsheng (刘洪生) is a contemporary Chinese calligrapher and teacher. He has been studying this art for over 40 years since he was eight years old. Liu Hongsheng is a textbook writer for the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, a scientific supervisor of students whose graduation projects are devoted to calligraphy; he is also a popularizer of culture in Shanxi province. For many years, Liu Hongsheng has been devoting his life to teaching calligraphy and promoting traditional Chinese culture. In particular, he has given more than 200 lectures in the Approaching Calligraphy series both in China and abroad. Moreover, master Liu Hongsheng created China’s first educational cartoon about calligraphy that covers basic knowledge about principles of handwriting in a playful way. All visitors of the exhibition will be able to enjoy this amazing work in St Michael’s Castle.

The exhibition features about 80 scrolls of master Liu Hongsheng. The works can be divided into three thematic groups: master Liu Hongsheng’s copies of famous ancient calligraphers’ inscriptions from stelae, original works of the calligrapher, and lecture materials, in which the master describes in detail the peculiarities of the styles of great ancient calligraphers, including Ouyang Xun, Zhao Mengfu, Yan Zhenqing, Wang Xizhi, and Mi Fu. The exhibition is complemented with the portraits of these prominent masters of calligraphy by Wang Lirong as well as four works by Liu Weiyi, a talented student of master Liu Hongsheng.