Rwanda is a small landlocked country in central west Africa known for its lush, mountainous forests, mountain gorillas and plenty of other wildlife like giraffes and exotic birds. In human history, Rwanda was only populated starting in the stone age or bronze age which is rather late in the game for an African country. It has remained as a unified collective or country for recorded history which is also unusual on the continent which underwent many colonial-era and post WWII-era changes. Just the other day I was writing about how mountainous countries in history have generally held together and avoided significant changes, as opposed to low-lying flat countries such as Belgium for example which was considered to be Europe's battlefield for hundreds of years. Speaking of Belgium, it and Germany took turns exerting influence over Rwanda in the colonial era, although neither country really invaded militarily or caused the sorts of problems seen in other colonized countries. All has not been peaceful in Rwanda since it underwent a terrible genocide in the 20th century, which has now passed by and the country is more or less unified again.
In the painting, I scrolled through a number of internet images and came up with an original composite of everything I have seen, including some of the knowledge I gained regarding the African landscape in general after having painted many paintings in the series. In some ways what I am doing is similar to what artificial intelligence does, that is, scan through a bunch of images then recycle them into a new image. Instead of artificial intelligence let's call it artistic intelligence, AI!
World Inspired Landscapes: Rwanda, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, March 2025 (No. 4194b)
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