![]() ![]() This article talks about the basic visual structure of Chinese landscape paintings. ![]() The cornerstones of this practice are: a grounding in the basic principles of human vision, learning the skills of awareness, and the synthesis of awareness and vision brought about by studying the structure of Chinese landscape painting. In the years since our first encounters with Chinese landscape painting we have discovered and brought the structure of the ancient Chinese paintings to life in modern digital photography and inkjet printing. It is as true a form of expression as exists in the world, where art and spirit collide and become one. It was created with awareness, reflection, and silence. It represents and unifies the human spirit, nature, and the universe. It is the longest living art genre in the world. The ancient Chinese landscape painters created an art that possesses amazing resilience to overcome the arbitrary movements with which Western art, including photography, is continually plagued. They worked with monotone ink and an assortment of brushes on silk or paper. They often lived (by necessity) very simply, as monks or hermits with few material possessions, in caves or simple mountain huts. ![]() The men who painted these precipitous spires walked and lived among them and felt themselves to be an integral part of nature in a way that few Western painters or photographers have. We have seen them at Huangshan, at Zhangjiajie, and in the Li River Valley. My first question was, “How did they come upon such strangely shaped mountains?” The answer turned out to be “by looking at the reality around them ” These mountains are for real. It was the paradigm shift I needed to accomplish the synthesis of surface visual perception and a deeper expression of the mysteries of nature accessed through awareness. But it wasn’t so much the technique that seemed similar, as the simple tools used to produce black and white images of the landscape and the inspiration these painters received from the Tao Te Ching. Here, in my hands, was the story and technique of a group of artists who were trying to do the same thing I was struggling with – but 1500 years ago – with a stick of black ink, water, a brush, and paper. ![]() As I read the introduction and the first chapter a strange thing happened: I started to substitute the word photography for painting. The title, The Tao of Painting, was intriguing to me, as I had read the ancient Tao Te Ching and understood that it was one of the sacred texts of the great religions. Curiosity finally got the best of me and I went over and opened it. At the other end of the long table where I sat was a large tattered book. It was late at night and I was the only one there except for the librarian. In the spring of 1986 I was in the college library preparing some notes for a lecture. What perceptual qualities (that we can see for ourselves) lie behind this? How can we adopt these to the medium of digital photography? Looking at the visual structure of paintings began for us as a way to analyze what makes a an image “work,” and it has grown into a fascination with a very different way of seeing – that of the classical Chinese Landscape painters. Traditional Chinese Landscape Painting has endured for almost 1500 years, longer than any genre in Western culture. Huangshan, China, 2012 By George DeWolfe and Lydia Goetze ![]()
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