Facing other cultures

Du Pengfei, deputy executive director of the museum, says the portraits on show do not just depict the figurative representations of people from different countries. He says that, in an unspeakable manner, they give a profile of the "social climate and cultural images" of these areas.

And tour, as in the exhibition title, Du adds, refers to the long journey upon which different civilizations continuously exchange and explore ways to learn from each other.

According to Xu Hong, the co-curator in general of the exhibition, one of the reasons why the exhibition centers around portraits is that "of all cultural legacies of human society, it is objects which portrayed people's faces and expressions-whether they are masks, pieces of wood carving, murals or clay figures, and whether they were made of oil paints, marbles or bronzes-that are more thought-provoking than others".