OREANDA-NEWS. December 26, 2011. The "Financial Splendor - Bank Museum's Collection of Calligraphy and Painting" Roadshow, sponsored by ICBC, was opened at The China Millennium Monument, in Beijing on December 15. A total of 100+ works in Bank Museum's Collection under the theme - Financial Culture, were shown to the public the unique flavor of financial painting and calligraphy.

Addressing the opening ceremony, ICBC Chairman Jiang Jianqing mentioned that at the Sixth Plenary Session, the 17th Central Committee of the CPC has approved a decision on deepening the reform of China's cultural system and promoting the development of the cultural industry. This brings the "Spring" for the cultural industry to gather pace. Being the largest commercial bank in China and an influential bank around the world, ICBC remains committed to the core philosophy of "Integrity Leads to Prosperity " to build its corporate culture and boost "cultural soft power". The Bank also plays an active role as the financial institution to launch new products, new services to suit the needs of cultural industry, and takes all necessary steps to strengthen and improve the financial supports and services to cultural industry.

On display in the exhibition were calligraphy and painting mainly centered around "financial". The exhibition presented from a unique artistic perspective the history of banking reform and development in China and reflected the changing times of financial living among the public. The calligraphy and painting have high historic as well as artistic value. The calligraphers and painters use ink and strokes to capture the tremendous changes that the banking industry has undergone and the vivid image of people engaging in the modern and contemporary banking sector. Not only they interpret lively the thought of financial services serving the national economy, but enlighten the viewers to inherit the spiritual legacy of earlier generation to bring China's financial industry to another new height. The calligraphy and painting in the exhibition have originality of each own to the highest quality, inheriting the abstract and sublime of Chinese calligraphy and painting while imbuing with the essence of financial culture, they are spiritual wealth of ICBC's corporate culture, also brilliant wonderful works in the treasure house of Chinese art. Besides the calligraphy and painting, the exhibition also showcased other artifacts in the Bank Museum's Collection such as engraved plates for printing paper currency, stamps of old-fashioned Chinese private bank, paper currency issued by private sector during olden days and savings tins. The exhibition looked in depth from different perspectives the context of financial history carried in each calligraphy and painting.

Over the years while dedicating to the building of financial culture and supporting the growth of cultural and arts sector, ICBC has collected works of arts with the theme of "Financial" from many generations of calligraphers and painters. Today, the Collection is magnificent. In 2000, ICBC set up the first financial museum in China - Bank Museum, to collect artifacts related to financial sector. So far, the Bank Museum has a collection of more than 30,000 financial artifacts from the end of Qing Dynasty. Since opening to public, the Bank Museum draws crowds of visitors at home and abroad. Not only does it serve as an important window to showcase ICBC's corporate culture, but is also a bright spot of China's financial culture.