Painting Asia for Life

Henry Arnold Savage Landor (1865-1924) was a man of many talents. Born in Florence into a family of British origin, he was nothing less than a painter, photographer, explorer, anthropologist, writer, lecturer and inventor. His life was extremely adventurous, his travels taking him far and wide across all the continents of the planet, almost always relying on nothing more than his own doggedness backed up by a quite extraordinary curiosity. With the result that he encountered a multitude of different cultures, at a time when many places were unexplored, and their peoples unknown. His adventures were to provide him with the inspiration for the highly successful books he published, in which the stories of his experiences were coupled with scientific information on geography, meteorology and ethnology. All these volumes were accompanied by a lavish selection of illustrations, with reproductions of his own paintings, drawings, and photographs. In fact, Savage Landor’s first ambition had been to become an artist. His art training came first in Florence and later in Paris, at a time when European painting was definitively isolating itself from the academic approach to give voice to a widespread desire for renewal. The rich colour mixtures of an Impressionist flavour that characterize Landor’s works blend elegantly with his ability to capture a fleeting slice of life, in ways that would later culminate naturally in a passion for photography.