Ancient Art Meets VR: Reimagining Landscapes and Heritage

I'm embarking on an epic adventure from spectacular natural landscapes to the busiest cities in the world. China, a place to explore the treasures of an ancient civilization. I find this really very special indeed. A culture that has lasted for thousands of years and which continues to shape this great nation. I've really been looking forward to seeing this. And to truly understand the secrets of a country's soul, I think you need to immerse yourself in its art. Time for the journey to begin. We begin in Shanghai, home to an extraordinary cultural relic, a square sheng, a bronze measuring vessel dating back more than 2,000 years that helped lay the foundations for an empire. Then on to Shen Yun, a city in northern China, where there's a groundbreaking ancient landscape painting. This is not how we look at paintings in the West. We'll also meet a Chinese artist whose approach involves combining VR with a traditional landscape painting. I love that. It's fusing completely different cultures. And see how modern-day drone technology is protecting China's most iconic structure, the Great Wall. Wow. Art, nature, and technology linked together are working hand in hand in harmony. In China, landscape painting has long been regarded as an important form of artistic expression. The woods of northern China are the place to visit if you want to understand the embodied in the landscape painting of the 10th century, the so-called golden age of Chinese painting. The central concept is which literally translates as wandering while lying down. It actually means appreciating the beauty of nature via landscape paintings. Artists living in that period of time weren't content to just depict nature. They wanted nothing less than to take the viewers of their paintings on a journey into nature. Chinese landscape paintings aren't meant to be real places. They're misty, magical, and imaginary realms that offer the viewer some sort of spiritual solace. There was a great Chinese artist who I think put it brilliantly. He said judging a painting by the accuracy of how it depicts the world is to display the understanding of a child. In the 10th century, five dynasties succeeded one another in the central plain after the fall of the Tang dynasty. It was a time of turbulence, disfigured by war. Where to find refuge from this chaotic and violent reality? In the inner world, the world of art. Liaoning Provincial Museum in Shen Yun in northeast China is one of the places to come to find out more about the innovative artists of that time. Awaiting the Fairy at the Foot of the Mountain in Summer by Dong Yuan is a masterpiece from more than 1,000 years ago. It's usually kept in the vaults of the museum under high security, so few people ever get the chance to see it. The scroll is so delicate that so much as a breath can damage it. Huang Weili, a research fellow, has studied ancient Chinese paintings for more than 30 years. What can he say about the concept of wu you embodied in this elegant painting? I find this really very special indeed and it's not just because of the age of the scroll, but it's also because this for me is a revelation. This is not how we look at paintings in the west. In the west, you'd look at a single image with a single viewpoint, a single focal point, but here you have this ever-shifting, perpetually moving panorama and your eye is drawn from one part of the image to another. Due to limited viewing time, it's not possible to film all the details of such a large scroll. That's why our graphics team have used high resolution images to show the delicate details of the painting. It might be a little faded, but its exquisite qualities shine through nonetheless. And the whole feeling here is one of, I think, tremendous well-being, tranquility, a sense of harmony in the natural world. Yet there is no question that you're sucked right into this scene and there's this feeling of beautiful transportation in your imagination, that you're suddenly in this landscape. I can sense the technique of this artist. All of the trees are painted with a very definite, a bolder, a darker use of ink than these wonderful mountains that disappear off into the background, into the distance, almost like clouds evaporating before our eyes. Even in a viewing of just a few minutes, it's possible to feel immersed in the world of this painting, to feel as if you really are waiting for the ferry at the foot of the mountain. But a few minutes doesn't provide enough time to be fully immersed. To experience a more complete Wōgyō, we'll have to look elsewhere. In China, art academies still provide traditional landscape painting courses. One artist is combining this tradition with high technology, reshaping Chinese landscape painting in the process. This is the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai. Oh, where am I? Somewhere else entirely. This is Yong Yung Liang. Ah, I can hear the birds. This is, it's gorgeous. Oh, you can see all the way around, 360. Yeah. Wow, beautiful. This gnarly old silhouetted tree, lots of mist, very peaceful. Yes. How long has it taken you to create this? Take almost one year. Ah, look, there's a dragonfly. Yes. And I feel like I can hear the waterfall that's in the distance coming down off the mountain. Oh, right, there's a stack. Yes. What's he doing here? Yong Yung Liang combines ancient Chinese aesthetics with modern digital technology. Wow, it's beautiful. Thank you. This piece of work, Eternal Landscape, combines landscape painting from the 10th century and 360-degree panoramic digital imaging technology. Did you train in the classical landscape painting tradition? I want to build a bridge from ancient to the future. So I want to use the new technology to present all the culture. I think this is my idea. I really rather loved that whole experience. I was in one of those classical Chinese landscape paintings. I felt VR really, really worked because the technology perfectly matches the subject matter. That whole concept of wu yi you, that's precisely what Yang Yong Liang created in Eternal Landscape, this sense of a 360 fully immersive world, where imaginatively you're transported to another place altogether. Next stop, the Shanghai Museum, to explore a cultural relic that's often ignored, but which laid the foundations for modern China more than 2,000 years ago. After that, we'll see how the latest technology is being used to protect the most famous historical relic of China, the Great Wall. In the 19th century, Shanghai was just a remote fishing village at the estuary of the Yangtze River. Now, it's a great, glittering metropolis. But despite the relative newness of Shanghai, China's ancient culture forms its art, and the Shanghai Museum houses many well-known ancient works. Some of these treasures might seem unimpressive at first, but are actually extremely important in the history of China. They date back to the Qin Dynasty, China's first imperial dynasty. For many people, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor, is synonymous with the world-renowned terracotta warriors. Those true-to-life-size terracotta warriors were interred in the huge mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang, an elite corps of eternal guards. Though some cultural relics seem humble and mundane, Dr. Wei Xin Ying believes that they have their own significance. They indicate what gave Qin Shi Huang the strength to unify China. So this dates from the very first year, the birth of the first empire. These feel to me like they're functional, relatively humble, everyday objects. With the coin, it's noticeable there are these two characters on either side of the square hole. What do they mean? These measuring vessels are of great historical importance because they ushered in a new era of standardization and allowed Qin Shi Huang to control an everyday necessity, grain. This Qin dynasty standardization policy also made another important measure possible, taxation. In fact, China's first emperor had made an important discovery that technology could boost development. Thus, thanks to his innovation, he was able to control grain and made riding systems, currency, and even the width of axles uniform around the country. Qin, therefore, became very powerful and the fame of the dynasty spread far and wide. In Jiankou, a mountainous area 100 kilometers north of downtown Beijing, the latest technology is being used to protect the Great Wall, the most famous of all historical sites in China. This is my first time on the Great Wall of China and it seems almost silly to say that it's spectacular because it's so conventional. But just have a look around because on every side you have these stupendous views and then there's the structure of the wall itself which is cavorting, cascading up and down across all of these knife-edge ridges and peaks like some sort of brick roller coaster. The whole thing feels somehow so improbable. Just think about how difficult it must have been to construct a wall at the top of the mountain. Much easier to do at the bottom, but I love that. It's almost like in itself it's an artistic statement undulating through the heavens. Aesthetically, it's perfect. The Great Wall was actually the fortifications built along the border of ancient China. While the oldest sections date back to the time of the first emperor, the Jian-Kao section was built 1,500 years later in the Ming Dynasty. But some parts of the section are in bad repair, so getting across these parts can be dangerous. A team from Peking University is taking part in an important project for the China Foundation for Cultural Heritage Conservation, using drones to protect the Great Wall. Hello. So the drone's already up then? The team is headed by Professor Zhang Jianwei. What are you actually looking for with the drone? So now we are making photogrammetry by taking hundreds of photos of the Great Wall and the castle and later we'll use software to create a 3D model. Now this is the castle that we are standing in and it's a 3D model generated by software using the pictures we photoed. That's the spot where we took panoramic photos. Ah, look at that. We also have very detailed images of every angle. And is the goal to end up with the wall looking brand spanking new almost? No, of course not. As you see, it's not new. We want to keep it in somehow a wild phase, but it's safe. We combine this old-fashioned and the new things together to make our conservation proposal. It always has to be there. It's old and new always. Yes, yes. Several hundred metres away, the 3D model built by Zhang Jianwei's team is helping the construction workers to locate sections that are in urgent need of repair and restoration. Has your respect for the wall, your admiration for it, has it increased? I'm still very respecting it, of course. And I think not only by the technology itself, but also the planning and how it integrates with the landscape that astonishes me very much. Reflecting on innovations like this, it's hard not to think of artist Yang Yongliang and his aspiration to build a bridge between ancient China and the future using new technologies to bring history and the past to life. Although this concept sounds quite modern, when you think about it, it's only what Chinese engineers and artists have been doing for more than 1,000 years.