Screenshot from documentary China Villager Documentary Project by Wu Wenguan.[Photo/Xinhua]

Caldura praised the high attention paid to manual skills at art schools in China. "My impression is that China is raising young artists with excellent classical manual skills. In addition, they are very informed and cultured," he highlighted.

The professor suggested that Chinese students further improve their "sensibility towards the contemporary world."

"A technically well-done painting is not enough, as it must mirror the contemporary sensibility," he explained to Xinhua. In his view, art is not just a "sum" of technical skills. "We hope that Chinese students here at our academy of art can go beyond technical skills and also improve their sensibility," he said.

Caldura stressed that China is "one of the cultural matrices of the world" and is rooted "in a very profound past." Thus the Asian country, he went on saying, has a huge potential to pursue top-quality art production by "drawing knowledge from the past as a rich chance for creativity in the present."

"If China manages to put together the manual and handicraft skills typical of its tradition with a sensibility towards the contemporary world, results can be outstanding," the professor told Xinhua. "And in fact this is already happening," he said.