Wu Guanzhong Sketching from Nature

The master’s image retouching skill

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We can tell from the paintings above that Wu Guanzhong did not plainly sketch from reality, rather he liked to change the positions of objects and landscapes to enhance the composition of his works. This was the master’s special image retouching skill and he called it “move-the-site sketching”. He would extract the most attractive elements from a scene, then rearrange or reconstruct them to form the unique image he had created in his mind. He said sketching was about capturing the spirit of things, not merely their shapes and form which made no difference to a photograph. That is why his works are so beautifully composed. They may resemble the real landscape, yet it is hard to find a viewpoint that captures the precise scenery — all because he had reshuffled everything to create a new image!


Victoria Harbour

This painting was made during Wu Guanzhong’s demonstration of sketching Victoria Harbour at the Hong Kong Museum of Art in 2002. It was a rainy day and Wu could not see the harbor clearly. Nonetheless, Wu decided to draw the buildings based on his memory. He even included the sculpture and palm trees in the lower right corner of the painting, which were originally behind him at that time.