Look Closely At These Chinese Landscapes, Which Are Really Photos Of Landfills

The artist Yao Lu disguises pictures of China’s environmental problems in the tropes of traditional Chinese art.

The images in Yao Lu’s New Landscapes series bear a striking similarity to classic Chinese landscapes.

But those bucolic settings are in fact digitally altered composite photographs of mounds of garbage.

That pastoral hillside? It’s more like a landfill.

That babbling brook? A littered roadside.

The artist covers the piles of trash with green mesh before taking his photos.

The images bear a striking similarity to classic Chinese landscapes.

From their wispy clouds floating between mountain peaks.

And the presence of traditional red small stamps that historically functioned as signatures for artists and studios.