“A scroll painting must be experienced in time like music or literature. Our attention is carried along, laterally from right to left, being restricted at any one moment to a short passage which can be conveniently pursued” (Rowley, 1970, p.61)  

 

Among other interesting aspects of the Chinese scroll painting tradition, the way it works with space, adding unique reading to ideas of perspective and composition, was the main reason I used it as an important element both to my technical and also conceptual research. I tend also to associate that idea with the sketchbook, in the sense that both objects share an incorporated narrative of cumulative moments gathered through time. 

The scroll painting never has a “ fixed vanishing point”. (Hockney, 2021, p.96). Instead, it invites the viewer to move, to be an active seeker of little details instead of focusing on one single point of interest, just like we do in real life when we are walking. We don't fix a single point, our eyesight moves, our attention is conditioned by what attracts us between different moments.  

​

Artists and authors

 

David Hockney

​

George Rowley

​

Chang Dai-chien

 

Books, exhibitions and others

 

Gayford, M. ; Hockney, D. (2016) A History of Pictures. London: Thames & Hudson

 

Gayford, M. ; Hockney, D. (2021) Spring Cannot be Canceled. London: Thames & Hudson

 

Rowley, G. (1970) Principles of Chinese Painting. Princeton: Princeton University Press

Johnson, M.; Zhang, J (2019) Chang Dai-chien Painting from Heart to Hand. San Francisco: Asian Art Museum