What is China like in Westerners' eyes? A British art exhibition on China that opened Thursday in Beijing offers seven different answers.
   
Seven members with the British Royal Academy of Arts, one of the world's most well-known arts organizations, displayed works inspired by a month-long tour in China in 2003 and 2004, at the National Art Gallery of China, said the Chinese Artists Association, one of the exhibition sponsors.
   
The artists --John Bellany, Paul Huxley, Allen Jones, David Mach, Ian McKeever, Brendan Neiland and Chris Orr -- are painters, sculptors and print-makers, said Nicolette Kwok, chairwoman of the Red Mansion Foundation, a British non-profitable organization, which invited them to China.
   
"Each artist was chosen for his approach to making art and for his ability to communicate and absorb elements of another culture into his art," said Kwok.
   
"Royal Academicians in China" shows nearly 50 paintings, collages and sculptures, depicting China's current social transition. Subjects include a Beijing park, the skyscrapers and neon lights of Shanghai, a taxi driver in a small alley and the friendly smile of a Chinese farmer.
   
"The West has long looked at China with a mixture of fascination and incomprehension. I hope this exhibition will plant a small seed of understanding and respect between East and West, which is crucial as China becomes an ever more important player in the international arena," Kwok said.
   
The exhibition also provides Chinese audiences with a rare occasion to experience the diversity and dynamics of contemporary British art and offers the artists the opportunity to advance their understanding of the exciting and challenging Chinese culture, said Pan Gongkai, president of China's Central Academy of Fine Art.
  
The artists will also be invited to give lectures at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and exchange views on China's arts market with their Chinese counterparts.
  
Royal Academicians, limited in number to no more than 80 at anyone time, are selected independently by the Royal Academy to represent outstanding achievement in British painting, sculpture and architecture, according to the Red Mansion Foundation.

(Xinhua News Agency April 15, 2005)