Guan Tong

Who is Guan Tong?

Guan Tong;, was a Chinese landscape painter of the Northern Landscape style during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period and early Song dynasty from the city of Chang'an. He was a pupil of Jing Hao, and known as a critical figure in the development of the era's monumental landscape painting. His landscape paintings achieved a believable and compelling portrayal of the natural world, an achievement typifing the tenth-century artists drive in the portrayal of nature. The great popularity Guan's distinctive style achieved is one measure of the popularity of landscape painting at the time.

Autumn Mountain Shadow is one of the paintings attributed to Guan Tong, and although there are several works attributed to him, there are no extant works bearing his signature. In this picture a barely visible steep path climbs through the rugged mountains. The work appears to be the visual equivalent of the poems describing hard journeys such as Li Bai's The Road to Shu is Hard. Guan's works focus also on the representation of the cyclical seasons of nature: a concept central to Chinese medicine and many schools of Chinese philosophy.