Xi an Beilin Museum Develops One Axle, Two Wings Artwork Display Layout

May 18 is the International Museum Day, on which, Xi an Beilin Museum established in 1940s welcomed new development opportunities. The new Stone Carving Art Hall was completed and opened to visitors. As the first museum in our province, the museum has formed the one axle, two wings artwork display layout with Confucius Temple ancient building block and Beilin as the center, Buddhist stone carving art hall in the east and tomb-styled stone carving in the west after 70 years since its establishment.

Xi an Beilin, as the thing that can show the historical and cultural value of Xi an, combines ancient buildings, ancient book collections, stone carvings of important historical moments, and famous steles of calligraphic arts. Xi an Beilin enjoys high reputation in domestic and overseas market, and is regarded as the treasury of calligraphic arts. Xi an Beilin is located in Sanxue Street, Xi an (the street got its name as Chang an School, Fuxue School and Xianning School were all set up here in Qing Dynasty). It was constructed in the 2^nd year of North Song (1078 DC) to protect the Kaicheng Shijing Steles. Over the past 900 years, collections were kept and cared carefully, with over 3,000 stone steles collected. Now, it has six stele corridors, seven stele rooms, eight stele pavilions, displaying a total of 1087 stone steles. In the exhibition room, stone classics of virtuous persons and philosophers, simple relique of literators of Qin and Han dynasties, tombs of Wei, Jin and North dynasties, calligraphic works of famous calligraphers in Tang Dynasty and paintings of famous persons in Song and Yuan dynasties are displayed. The works of Wang Xizhi, a famous calligrapher, Wu Daozi, a famous painter as well as Wang Wei, who is a famous poet and painter furthered added colors for the Xi an Beilin. Xi an Beilin has become an important part of historical and cultural relic treasury with its unique characteristics. In 1962, it was selected as the first batch of key unit for cultural relics of China.

Xi an Beilin has over 1000 years of history. Xi an Beilin Museum has a history of more than 70 years since its establishment in 1980s. There are more than 4,000 pieces of stone carving collections of different dynasties, more than 300 Buddhist stone steles and stone carving Buddha figures. Most of these cultural relics haven t been displayed.

Since 1992, Xi an Beilin Museum planned to construct a new stone carving art gallery to showcase most of the stone carving Buddhist cultural relics to the visitors. After as long as 17 years of argumentation and planning, the joint efforts of three leading groups and 20 months of construction, a modernized museum focusing on stone carving art Xi an Beilin New Stone Carving Art Hall was constructed to the east of Xi an Beilin Museum.

In the meantime, the display of Chang an Buddha Charm was completed. The new Stone Carving Art Hall will open to the public on the morning of May 18, i.e. the International Museum Day.

The new Stone Carving Art Hall covers a total area of 7,903 square meters, of which, 1,321 square meters are display exhibition hall, 285 square meters are temporary exhibition hall, 146 square meters are good edition warehouse, 330 square meters are paintings and calligraphies warehouse, 1670 square kilometers are underground cultural relics warehouse, 181 square meters are multi-media hall, 39 square meters are cultural relics reparation room.

Total investment of the art hall reached 61 million yuan. From November 2009 to March 2010, the new Stone Carving Art Hall passed the evaluation and check of new Stone Carving Art Hall provincial-level key construction project smoothly, the check and acceptance of arrangement of Chang an Buddha Charm displays, check and acceptance of safety and technical defense project, check and acceptance of firefighting project, and check and acceptance on quality of main buildings.

This marks that Xi an Beilin Stone Carving Art Hall has meet the conditions to be opened formally.

In the meantime, reconstruction of the old Stone Carving Art Hall (i.e. Xi an Stone Carving Art Hall to the west of Beilin has been completed. At that time, the old art hall will be opened to the public together with the new one. The old art hall is located in the west of the museum, and was constructed in 1963.

Name of the hall was written by Marshal Chen Yi. The old art hall has the display area of over 1,000 square meters. Many national treasures such as Zhaoling Liujun are displayed here. In order to keep the same style with the new stone carving art hall in the east, 35 pieces of tomb stone carving cultural relics are supplemented while not changing other tomb stone carving cultural relics.

Thus, Xi an Beilin Museum has formed the new display structure of one axle and two wings .

New Highlight of New Stone Carving Art Hall of Beilin

Highlight 1: simple designing style of main buildings, elegant colors and magnificent appearance;

Highlight 2: massive stone carving cultural relics in diversified categories and high grade;

Highlight 3: innovative display form, advanced lighting equipment and good display effects;

Highlight 4: cultural relics safety quake-proof technologies are applied to ensure safety of cultural relics;

Highlight 5: high-tech and multi-media technologies as well as tourism interaction technologies are applied to offer diversified forms.

The display is named Chang an Buddha Charms. A total of 151 pieces of stone carving statues from North Wei to Song dynasties are displayed, representing the highest level of Chang an Buddhist art in the history. The exhibits are selected from 300 statues, most of which are firstly displayed.