Background
Li Tang was born in 1050 in China.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
painting
Wind in the Pines Among a Myriad Valleys
Intimate Scenery of River and Mountains (detail)
Sitting on Rocks Gazing at the Mist
Intimate Scenery of River and Mountains
Li Tang
Edit Profile李唐
Career
Already in his early years he earned his living by painting. He survived the invasion by the Jurchen Jin dynasty in 1126 – 1127, and, together with the court, moved to Hangzhou, which became the capital city of the newly established Southern Song Dynasty. Li Tang served in the academy of painting of Emperor Huizong, and, after the North fell to the Mongols, went to the South and entered the academy of Emperor Song Gaozong. His landscapes — of which one dated 1124 is the most reliably ascribed — serve as a vital link between the earlier, and essentially Northern, variety of monumental landscape, and the more lyrical Southern style of the Ma-Xia school. Li perfected the brushstroke texture known as the “ax stroke,” which gives a tactile sense to painted rocks and suggests the precise and comprehensive reality that Southern Song artists sought to give their landscapes.
Li was among the most influential of the early Southern Song landscape artists and had many followers. He represented a vital link between the Northern Song school, and the later Southern Song painters, such as Xia Gui and Ma Yuan, both of whom studied Li's art. As with most Song artists, few of his paintings survive, and most are of questionable authorship. The large hanging scroll "Wind in Pines Among a Myriad Valleys" is the only painting that bears a clear signature by the artist, which is placed on one of the peaks in the top section. The texture of the rocks in this painting is a standard example of the "ax-cut" strokes technique.
Other works commonly attributed to Li Tang are "Intimate Scenery of River and Mountains", a long landscape scroll, and "Sitting on Rocks Gazing at the Mis"t, both in the possession of the National Palace Museum. Li died in 1130.
Achievements
Works
painting
