Old tales told anew

Digitized images from the new smartphone app, Night Revels of Han Xizai. Photos provided to China Daily

Beijing's Palace Museum launches yet another smartphone app to help younger people understand Chinese history and culture better. 

Technology has made an ancient painting come alive.

Last week, Beijing's Palace Museum released its smartphone app, Night Revels of Han Xizai, in order to provide a vivid multimedia account of the five-part scroll painting by the same name. The painting is part of a collection that's housed among the museum's some 53,000 pieces of traditional Chinese paintings.

The painting was first created in the Southern Tang Dynasty (AD 937-975) that ruled what is today's southern and central China, and reflects how the highly placed government official Han Xizai tried to escape his home state when he realized the dynasty's end was near.

Historians believe that the current painting was created during the Song Dynasty (960-1279), and is commonly considered to be the best among its many replicas.

According to Yu Zhuang, chief designer of the museum's app that can work on Apple and Android products, the new release offers more than 100 explanatory notes in texts and videos, which are hidden in high-definition digital versions of the original work.

Many interactive designs have also been applied to making the app. Explanations on voice, for instance, are recorded in both Mandarin and English.

When clicked, the dancers from the painting will be replaced by present-day dancers performing shows from that dynasty. The performance was presented by Taipei Han Tang Yuefu Ensemble, a troupe devoted to the restoration of the rituals surrounding ancient music, based on archaeological findings.

Oscar-winning Hong Kong costume designer Tim Yip is among the app's art counselors.

"Nowadays people always stare at their smartphone screens ... they watch videos or play games," Yu says. "Why can't we make them watch something more elegant, and play something more artistic?"

He adds that the app was made from 900 gigabyte of data, collected for more than two years.