The Synthesis of Chinese Landscape Painting and Photography

Huangshan, China, 2012
By George DeWolfe and Lydia Goetze
Traditional Chinese Landscape Painting has endured for almost 1500 years, longer than any genre in Western culture. 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.
George DeWolfe:
In the spring of 1986 I was in the college library preparing some notes for a lecture. It was late at night and I was the only one there except for the librarian. At the other end of the long table where I sat was a large tattered book. Curiosity finally got the best of me and I went over and opened it. 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 sacre...