The Open University of China’s (OUC) Chinese Traditional Landscape Painting Appreciation and Creation & Moodle Platform Construction project, funded by the China National Arts Fund, recently launched in Beijing.

Beginning with improving the level of citizens’ artistic ability, the project strives to realise educational equity by developing public welfare micro-lectures on skills and the appreciation of landscape painting. Adapting development to the public’s need for art education positively carries out the OUC’s mission to construct lifelong learning for all.

The project aims to spread skills and appreciation of Chinese traditional landscape painting to the painting and calligraphy lovers, promote Chinese traditional culture, and enhance national artistic skills by utilising advanced modern distance educational technology and mobile Internet technology. Learners receive prompt support through the platform’s new media technology.

The course lecturer is Yu Shaoping, director of the OUC Research Institute of Painting and Calligraphy Art Education’s Painting and Calligraphy School. Online and offline instruction includes rudimentary topics, appreciation, patterns, light and space awareness in landscape painting, and practice, and more. Online instruction is oriented towards learners across China, which includes the construction and maintenance of a Moodle learning platform, with an emphasis on learners’ needs on mobile terminals, and the integration of online and offline learning. Offline instruction will take place in three classes, located in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Harbin. The project aims to quickly improve the landscape painting skills of adult learners keen on Chinese painting who possess no prior knowledge.

The project is a joint collaboration between the OUC headquarters and departments in branch schools. The expert panel included Tang Yingshan and Yang Yao, directors of the OUC Faculty of Art Education, Han Yi, director of Quality Supervision and Evaluation Centre, Xie Jun of the OUC Experimental School, Huang Yan of Harbin RTVU, and Wang Zhengdong of Zhejiang RTVU.

The China National Arts Fund is a state-established public welfare fund dedicated to enriching development in the arts, building and promoting original works, cultivating art professionals, propelling the healthy development of a national arts programme. It is of profound and historical significance, as well as practical to the work of the China National Arts Fund.

                                                                                                                  By Yan Jingzhen, www.china.org.cn