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Abbeville Press |
Dec 2005 |
“A truly sublime photo book.” -- Business Week
“Wang Wusheng's breathtaking photographs unlock the secret of traditional Chinese landscape painting.”
--- Seattle Post-Intelligence
“Each page is a revelation.” -- Parabol
“Duotone photographs are the achingly beautiful stuff that dreams are made of. These granite peaks shrouded in mist look like islands in the clouds—at once serene and strikingly dramatic. The result enthralls, with an almost painful yearning that's akin to the numinous.” -- Artsforum
A lavishly produced volume featuring stunning duotone images of China's fabled Yellow Mountains by the celebrated photographer Wang Wusheng.
For more than three decades, Wang Wusheng has been captivated by the beauty of Mount Huangshan, also known as the Yellow Mountains. Located in the southern part of the Anhui province in northern China, Mount Huangshan has often been described as the world’s most beautiful and enchanting mountain. Over the centuries this mountain with its seventy-two peaks has been the subject of Chinese landscape painters, whose singular works are so haunting it seems impossible that these mountains exist in nature. Inspired by the legacy of these paintings, Wang Wusheng has sought to portray this scenic wonder. As shown in the collection of ninety photographs in this extraordinary volume, here are mist-shrouded, granite peaks emerging from an ever-changing veil of clouds, sculptural craggy rocks, on lofty cliffs, and weathered, oddly-shaped pine trees, depicted in all seasons and at various times of day. Wang Wusheng’s images are so exceptional that they look like paintings.
Accompanying the photographs are two fascinating essays about the art history and natural history of the Yellow Mountains. Art historian Wu Hung provides an eloquent, comprehensive survey of the region’s artistic, literary, and photographic tradition, relating how Wang Wusheng’s work is an important part of this notable legacy.
In a second essay, Damian Harper presents an authoritative account of the geology, geography, and natural history of this legendary place. In addition, there is an introduction by the Japanese critic Seigo Matsuoka, who contributes an insightful appraisal of Wang Wusheng’s work.
Born in the province of Anhui, Wang Wusheng has been photographing the Yellow Mountains since 1974. He has contributed his work to books published in China, Japan, and Austria, and his photographs have been in collected and widely exhibited by museums and galleries, including the Museum of Chinese Art in Peking. He lives in Tokyo. Wu Hung was educated in China and earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University, where he was a professor. He is now a professor of Chinese art history at the University of Chicago and the director of the Center for the Art of East Asia. His books, including Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting, have received a number of important awards. Damian Harper lives in Shanghai and is the author of numerous books, among them National Geographic Traveler’s China. Seigo Matsuoka, who lives in Tokyo, teaches at Tezukama University. He was the editor- in-chief of YU magazine and has written many books and articles.
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