By Huang Zhiling and Luo Xianyu (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-04-29 14:54

A traditional Chinese painting exhibition, named "Looking back at Zhang Daqian," kicked off at the Du Fu Thatched Cottage Museum in Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province on Tuesday.

Visitors have a close look at a painting by Zhang Daqian during an exhibition of his works in Chengdu, Sichuan Province on April 29, 2008.

The exhibition, which will be free of charge, ends on May 8. It is the largest painting show featuring works of Zhang Daqian (1899-1983) in China in recent years and will enable visitors to have access to his excellent works, said Chen Tao, an official with the museum.

The exhibition displays about 60 classical works of Zhang collected by different museums in Sichuan. As the museum which collects the most pieces of Zhang's work compared with others in the world, Sichuan Museum offers 37 pieces including his water ink paintings and facsimile of Dunhuang fresco.

Visitors can enjoy many masterpieces of Zhang, such as Loquat painted in 1927 and Flowers, a scroll painted in 1973.

Zhang, a master of traditional Chinese paintings, was a native of Neijiang, Sichuan.

The Du Fu Thatched Cottage Museum is dedicated to Du Fu (AD 712-770), one of China's greatest poets. His poems are prescribed reading for China's primary school students and foreign students majoring in Chinese literature.

Du lived for nearly four years in the cottage in the western suburbs of Chengdu, writing 240 of his 1,400-plus poems. Because of his great poetic achievements, Du has long been hailed as China's "Poetic Saint."