Li Gonglin

Li Gonglin (born 1049, Shucheng, Anhui province, China—died 1106) was one of the most lavishly praised Chinese connoisseurs and painters in a circle of scholar-officials during the Northern Song period.

Li Gonglin was born into a scholarly home, received the jinshi (“advanced scholar”) degree in 1070, and followed the common career of going to the capital in Kaifeng to serve as an official. There he became acquainted with many of the literary lights of the day. Li Gonglin developed high standards of critical taste by collecting and copying old masters. In his own painting, he rejected pure description and obvious dexterity for a greater emphasis upon scholarly knowledge of the antique and the possibility of self-expression within those modes—the ideal of “literati painting” (wenrenhua). No completely reliable paintings of Li Gonglin are still in existence, and many styles and attitudes of painting are associated with him. Generally he is known as a painter of horses, Buddhist subjects, landscapes, and figures. In spite of a conventional association with a rather sketchy style appropriate to his literary tastes, he is also linked with a very refined, elegant, and skillful outline painting of figures and architecture that does not utilize colour.