(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-02-03 14:39

"Even nowadays, artists seldom make horses as beautiful as this," he said pointing to a life-sized horse from the Qin Dynasty.

Others were also impressed. "The height and the posture of the terracotta statues are very impressive," a 60-odd Dutch woman said.

"Look at their faces, the expressions are so lifelike and each one is distinct from another," said the woman, who drove two hours from the southern part of the country to see the exhibition.

The exhibition, which runs through August 31, was expected to draw 150,000 to 200,000 visitors, Hofstede said.

"This would be an unprecedented number considering that we usually have 90,000 visitors a year in the museum," she said.

The exhibition of the terracotta army was part of the "Go China!" project, jointly organized by the Drents Museum and the Groninger Museum, which comprises a total of five exhibitions on Chinese archaeology, Chinese Realists, avant-garde art and Chinese contemporary art.

In Groningen, 30 kilometers in the north of Assen, the exhibition of archaeological bronze objects from China opened Saturday. The vats and cloches, cast 2,000 to 3,800 years ago, were masterpieces from the Shanghai Museum of China.

From March to November, three exhibitions on present-day Chinese art, including work by Ai Weiwei, and Chinese Realists and Avant-garde art from the 1980s and 1990s, would go on show in stages in the Groninger Museum.

"For a big part of the year, all the rooms in our museum will be occupied by exhibitions from China and its artists," said Josee Selbach, communication chief of the Groninger Museum.

"This would be the first time that our museum is solely devoted to exhibitions about one country," she said, adding that the museum expects a large number of visitors.

To show the versatile and rich culture of China, the museums also planned many other activities, including music nights, open classes of Tai Chi, and a educational program for school kids.

The "Go China!" project, designed to coincide with the Olympic Games in Beijing, would make the northern Netherlands "completely immersed in Chinese culture in 2008", according to the press releases of the museums.

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