Artists › Painters and Calligraphers
Li Tang
Court landscape painter who bridged the Northern and Southern Song, author of Wind in Pines Among a Myriad Valleys and one of the Four Masters of the Southern Song
A desk holds an unrolled sheet bearing three bold black ink strokes, with a rack of many brushes above it, a stone ink slab and ink stick, a porcelain bowl, a red lacquer box, a dish of red seal paste and a paperweight; a small seated figure shows through a round window onto bamboo.
Also known as Zi Xigu
Li Tang, courtesy name Xigu, came from Sancheng in Heyang, present-day Mengzhou in Henan. According to the Precious Mirror of Painting he entered the painting academy under Emperor Huizong, and in the Jianyan era, recommended by the commandant Shao Yuan, he was made a gentleman for fidelity and painter-in-attendance with the gift of a gold belt, when he was nearly eighty. His hard axe-cut strokes for rock carried landscape from the towering panoramas of the north toward the pared-down compositions of the Southern Song. Wind in Pines Among a Myriad Valleys in Taipei is signed and dated spring 1124, and Gathering Ferns in the Palace Museum, Beijing shows Boyi and Shuqi on Mount Shouyang. He is counted with Liu Songnian, Ma Yuan and Xia Gui as one of the Four Masters of the Southern Song.
Life and times
Dates Dates unknown; dated work of 1124, still serving as a court painter in the Jianyan era (1127–1130)