When Paolo Sabbatini Rancidoro is called "an expert of Chinese I-Ching", the artist modestly turns down the title and jokes that "one can't be an expert" of one of the oldest Chinese classics in history.

But that does not discourage the Italian painter and calligrapher from the subject - long used as an aid for predictions and geomancy in China for at least 5,000 years.

Sabbatini's longtime hobby has been to research and study "magical Eastern spirituality", and now an exhibition in Shanghai features his interpretation of the Western and Eastern spiritual worlds through his paintings.

"Charms and Collages" will showcase a total of 40 works created in the past decades.

He's already held several exhibitions, in both one-man and group shows, in China as well as in Italy, France and Russia.

But this is the first exhibition where Sabbatini combines the I-Ching and Mediterranean spells and incantations.

"The works exhibited are a result of lifelong research," he says. "They are not impromptu creations, but careful compositions."

Sabbatini learned drawing and painting from Giuseppe Pende, a 20th-century master of The Marches, while studying humanities and literature.

Museums and private collectors around the world have collected his paintings and drawings. Sabbatini has lived and worked in Shanghai since 2006, and is a director for the Italian Cultural Bureau and consultant for the Shanghai Theater Academy.

You can contact the writer at xujunqian@chinadaily.com.cn.

China Daily