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A Chinese Perspective

Artist: Donald, George, RSA · b. 1943

A Chinese Perspective

The Diploma Work was inspired by the artist's travel to China in 1989 "The painting...came from my exposure to a wealth of paintings (especially from…

The Diploma Work was inspired by the artist's travel to China in 1989 "The painting...came from my exposure to a wealth of paintings (especially from the T'ang period) in/ museums, the brush paintings of so mnay Chinese artists whom I met or whose work I saw and studied and my/ attempts to see landscape through (as it were) this 'filter'. I wanted to create the sensation of those intricate, formal/ paintings, but employing...a highly ornate method of working, heavy with the rich and textured surface of/ gesso grounds over cut out shapes. I suppose the exposure to Chinese art helped me to find ways of approaching the visual world with a set of formal/ "rules" as a guide or matrix. Such an approach is highly attractive for someone trained in a western way, to record/ nature in a (so-called) naturalistic manner....I continued and developed this way of working subsequently..." (see e-mail from the artist to the RSA dated 2004-01-20 in hanging file "Articles on Painters")

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