A dance is performed at the opening ceremony for the Lishui Barbizon International Symposium and 2019 Guyan Huaxiang Art Festival. The performance took place on Aug 20 in Guyan Huaxiang town, Liandu district, Lishui city, Zhejiang province. [Photo/WeChat account: liandufb] 

An international symposium and an art festival celebrating the local interpretation of the famous French Barbizon school of painting recently took place in Lishui city in Zhejiang province. It opened on Aug 20 in Guyan Huaxiang, a scenic town in the city's Liandu district.

The Barbizon school, a mid-19th-century French school of landscape painting, takes its name from the village of Barbizon in France. A group of painters in Lishui drew on the artistic style and techniques of the school in the mid 1980s and developed their own unique Lishui Barbizon style of painting.

The Lishui Barbizon International Symposium and 2019 Guyan Huaxiang Art Festival was attended by more than 400 artists from at home and abroad.

Activities include a main forum, three sub-forums, three art lectures and four painting exhibitions focusing on art, rural revitalization and ecological protection, as well as art fairs and a musical carnival, according to the organizing committee.

The opening ceremony featured a beautiful performance showcasing the charms of Lishui Barbizon school paintings, presented with different art forms such as songs, dances, poetry and paintings.

A performer recites a poem while two others act out a story about two painters falling in love with each other, in Guyan Huaxiang town. [Photo/WeChat account: liandufb]

Organizers said the festival has been held for three consecutive years, with the purpose of promoting the cultural tourism of Guyan Huaxiang and revitalizing the local economy through art.

The town has become a practice base for nearly 300 art schools and institutions in China thanks to its rich painting culture, with around 150,000 students coming to paint there every year. 

Statistics show that the town attracted nearly 1.77 million visitors in 2018, generating revenue of 22.01 million yuan ($3.11 million), 14 times more than the revenue in 2012.

The annual output of the local oil painting industry is worth about 120 million yuan, and residents' income per capita in the town's core area increased by nearly 10 times from 4,325 yuan in 2005 to 39,000 yuan in 2018.