Abstract
"Whispering Pines in the Mountains" by Li Tang is regarded as an important work representative of the transition from the Northern Song to the Southern Song in style and texture-stroke method, and exhibits characteristics of both the Fan Kuan style and the Southern Song Academy. The painting has, however, two significant aspects beyond this transitional character. The first lies in the effectiveness of the skillful depiction of axe-cut strokes rendering a close viewing of the painting profitable and resulting in the loss of a sense of far and near. The second lies in the distortion of the underlying organization of the landscape. These two closely related points allow the viewer to feel present in the landscape. Southern Song works with this quality are most often in the style of Xia Gui. However, the closest painting is the landscape pair in the Koto-in attributed to Li Tang. If this peculiar quality is so strongly apparent in two works attributed to the artist, could we not regard it as a defining characteristic of Li Tang's landscape?
