The Forbidden City by Valentin Dmitriev Photo: Courtesy of organizers

"I love China, and the long history and exquisite art of China deeply captivated me," said Valentin Dmitriev, the well-known Russian painter, expressing his love for Chinese culture as his exhibition kicked off recently near Beijing's Tsinghua University.

A total of 36 of Dmitriev's artworks are on display at the highly anticipated exhibition, including Russian-style oil paintings and Chinese-style paintings.

He created Chinese landscape paintings such as The Forbidden City by drawing on the location's history, establishing great contrast between modern skyscrapers and classic architecture. 

Dmitriev enjoys a prominent position in Russia. 

Billed as "Nature's colorist," he is well versed in landscape oil painting and shows an eclectic taste in painting, inheriting the 19th Century Peredvizhniki Russian realist style, also called The Wanderers.

Dmitriev's painting language and skills in this show are sure to inspire Chinese oil painting lovers, said Zhang Gan, the curator of the exhibition and professor of the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University. 

Dmitriev arrived in Beijing on September 8 to take part in a Chinese art tour. He went to Xi'an, Chongqing, Wuhan and other cities to sketch nature and experience China's beautiful ethos. 

Dmitriev noted that he will take more than 90 sketches back to Russian and create a series of Chinese landscape artworks after the tour. 

Most of the works in this show were transformed from sketches, with brush strokes and colors bringing out their vividness and charm. 

No photograph can compare to the wonderful colors of his artwork, visitors said at the event.

The exhibition, set to run until November 5, is divided into the sub-themes Cloud, Mountain, and Sea. 

The exhibition was co-organized by the Moscow State Stroganov Academy of Design and Applied Arts and the Shui Mu Qing She Culture and Arts studio, and is being curated by Tsinghua University's Academy of Arts and Design, enhancing the cultural exchanges between China and Russia.