Within the hall of the Palace of Justice, the landmark building in Brussels, 10 huge landscape paintings by Chinese artist Xu Longsen were hung down, with the height of eight paintings reaching 10.7 meters and the width 8.7 meters.
"Standing between the mountains, I feel I can hardly breathe. I was really surprised of what he did with the environment," Vanmechelen said, "It's really impressive."
Vanmechelen said that he can see from the works of the Chinese artist, "the individual behind the works is very respectful of nature" and "there is a link between the artist and the nature."
Charlotte Nievwenhuys, a master in fine art at the Edinburgh College of Art in Ireland, was also struck by the Chinese landscape paintings.
"For me, colors say a lot of things and I use a lot of colors. So when I see such paintings with only black and white, I found it really amazing," she said.
"It's so big and it's very successful to do such a big piece of work. It gives you a lot of emotions," she added.
Etienne Dekimpe, coordinator of an exhibition focusing on China held in 2007, liked the paintings very much, saying that "it's monumental art in a monumental place."
"Standing in this building with Mr. Xu Longsen's paintings, we have a feeling that as human beings, we are too small and we have to hold respect for nature," Dekimpe said.
Talking of his works created for the exhibition named "On top of a thousand mountains", Xu, a famous painter and collector in China, said that traditional Chinese landscape paintings used to decorate the private study of an intellectual, but they need a public space in this new era.
"I think the visual shock of the traditional paintings is not enough. Although the size does not necessarily mean good, it's really significant," the Chinese artist said.
The exhibition will open to the public from Oct. 15 as part of the Europalia China art festival. From Oct. 8, 2009 to Feb. 14, 2010, the art festival is going to present about 50 exhibitions and 450 art performances and cultural events in more than 70 cities in Belgium and four neighboring countries, namely the Netherlands, France, Luxembourg and Germany.
The exhibitions and art performances will highlight four main themes: Immortal China, Contemporary China, Colorful China, and China and the World. Each theme will be illustrated by a key exhibition.
As many as 19 Chinese provinces, cities and autonomous regions, 58 museums, libraries, archaeological institutes, and numerous public and private cultural institutions have contributed to the art festival, jointly organized by Europalia International and the Chinese Ministry of Culture.