Chinese painting has had a prolonged history, and has produced a great number of masterworks over the centuries. A seminal point was reached during the Ming Dynasty, an era during which art flourished as never before. Ming Dynasty paintings continued the ideologies of traditional Chinese painting, but placed greater emphasis on real life, and narrowed the gap between nature and rural life. The artworks created in that period displayed vivid and lively poetic sentiments, and reflected the spirit of the traditional literati paintings through refreshing scholarly sensibility. During the Qing Dynasty, although the feudal system was firmly established, the ideas of the art world were still quite lively, and this period produced many creative works with distinct personalities. At the same time, local painting groups and schools flourished, and painters from north and south echoed each other, forming a lively scene of competing schools with a variety of styles. The Palace Museum holds a treasured collection of Ming and Qing paintings, and the exhibition is composed of a selection of masterpieces from this collection; these can be considered the epitome of the classics. The collection at the National Art Museum of China mainly focuses on Chinese art since the 20th century, but it also has a selection of its Ming and Qing Paintings with unique academic value, including a generous donation of national treasures made by Mr. Deng Tuo in the 1960s. This part of the collection has never been seen by the public, and it will now be able to present these glories along with the treasures of the Palace Museum, so that the public can enjoy two state-level art museum collections in one setting, and develop an understanding of the course of development of Chinese painting from the Ming and Qing Dynasties to Modern times.
