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New Year paintings

Few people do it as a warmup celebration for the Chinese New Year these days, but putting up nianhua, or New Year paintings, used to be an essential part of family life to help intensify the festive mood and express wishes for a year of harvest and peace. New Year paintings, once a predominant craft across the country, were normally produced in the formats of woodcut or half-woodcut, half-painting, and varied in style from region to region to form several hubs of production. China in New Year Paintings, an ongoing exhibition at Guangdong Museum, allows people to savor the intense atmosphere of Spring Festival in a display of 300 works, as well as materials and tools of making them. They are from several museums in the well-known production centers of woodcuts and New Year paintings, such as Yangliuqing in Tianjin, Wuqiang in Hebei province and Foshan in Guangdong province. In the vibrant paintings, one can "enter a world of immortals" from Chinese mythology and the figures are depicted as guardians to protect people from illness and the evils and to guarantee a stable, prosperous life. Some other paintings show daily scenes of life in an atmosphere of relaxation and prosperity, such as family gatherings in a well-designed hall or children playing in a courtyard. The exhibition runs through to March 29.

9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays. 2 Zhujiang East Road, Tianhe district, Guangzhou, Guangdong province.020-3804-6886.