CHONGQING - From December 17 to February 28, Chongqing tourists and folks can read artworks created by Spanish world-class virtuoso Salvador Dalí at the Qian Art Museum in Jinshan Ecool.
What we can see in the Qian Art Museum is one of the limited wood block collections owned by the Gala - Salvador Dalí Foundation in Figueras, Spain.
César Salgado Galiano, the exhibition curator, is an art historian at the Complutense University of Madrid. This was his first time planning an art exhibition in China's southwestern metropolis Chongqing.
"While planning the exhibition, we believe that this city is fully developing its culture, and there are lots of tourist attractions," he said, "I wish that the public in the city could love this exhibition."
Chen Zhiwei, the owner of the Qian Art Museum, also works as the executive curator. He started as a self-learned curator and became well-known among the local artists. His experiences encouraged him to educate people that arts are not hard to access.
"Arts are part of our beautiful life, like eating great food and listening to music," said Chen.
He continued art is not that sophisticated. I want to convey that message to people through the Qian Art Museum exhibitions.
The opening ceremony did not receive as many visitors as the museum has enjoyed previously, but Chen said that the number of visits has increased since the new year holiday.
La Divina Comedia combines 100 prints of Dali's work which depicted Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, the three afterlife states in Christianity.
About 700 years ago, they were imaginably described by the renaissance poet Dante Alighieri in his book Divine Comedy. Dalí, commissioned by the Italian government in the 1950s to illustrate Dante's work, created the 100 watercolors with a surrealist style, which led to wide disputes. The Italian parliament finally canceled the commission. The artist strove to finish the 100 works supported by the French publisher Joseph Forêt.
These works were then interpreted as wood engravings and have been widely considered Dalí's most outstanding graphic achievement.