Art International - September, 1977
It is interesting to see what an American painter and draughtsman makes of them when he comes face to face with Chinese mountains. Tom George has Iong shown a passion for mountain peaks, and many know him best through his depictions of Norway's stony heights and gorges. It comes as no surprise therefore, that after great effort, he has now succeeded in visiting the People’s Republic of China with only its celebrated mountains in mind.
Yet Tom George’s interest in these eccentric peaks Is wholly unlike that of the classic Chinese painters of the past. For them, the painting of ”mountain-water pictures” was traditionally a philosophical exercise. The hard, resistant mountains were symbols of yang, the soft erosive rivers symbols of yin. These two together represent the nature of the cosmos. Even the differing brush strokes for mountain and river respectively, echoed the opposite forces, the deep black strokes signifying the masculine spirit of Yang, the gray and misty ones the feminine spirit of Yin. ln as much as all opposites (in a Chinese view) form the unity of nature, a “mountain-water picture” is a declaration of the divine harmony.
In Tom George’s approach, the transformation of nature into art is otherwise. He also uses brushes and black ink; but neither his ink nor his brush strokes would ever be mistaken for Chinese ones. As we see from these vigorous examples, it is the rhythms of their forms, as his sable brush follows the towering cliffs and ridges of the peaks, that are his chief interests. When he has finished it each drawing offers a rich abstract pattern, amounting to a kind of distillation of a Kweilin mountain scene. The more reduced they are in their numbers of strokes, the more concentrated is the effect. Each view not only reflects the movements he discovers in these Chinese mountains but the delight he takes in their rhythmic patterns. Thus, a mountaineer’s eye and a devotees feeling combine in all that this artist reports from his exotic journey. Tom George’s Chinese mountains are likely to be most enjoyed and best understood by Western viewers who have been nurtured in the tradition of Rembrandt and Van Gogh. Yet, his bold Western expressionism here offers another bridge to Asia for those who will travel with him.
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