Who were the outstanding figure painters in the early Song Dynasty?

In the early Song Dynasty, figure painting mostly followed Wu Daozi in the Tang Dynasty, followed suit, and there was nothing new. Only Wu Zongyuan and Li have made outstanding achievements. They developed Wu Daozi's tradition of emphasizing color, and improved the drawing method of "line drawing" to an independent art form, thus pushing the line drawing art of traditional figure painting to a climax.

Song Zhenzong Wu Zongyuan presided over Taoist murals and directed 3,000 painters.

Li Yisheng's career was bleak, but his poems and paintings were outstanding and his achievements were even more outstanding. In the Southern Song Dynasty, Li was compared with Wu Daozi, an "ancient and modern painter", which shows Li's achievements. But in fact, there are huge differences between Li and Wu Daozi.

In Wu Daozi's time, painting was mainly done on the wall, while in Li's time, painting was displayed on paper. When the media of painting is transferred from the wall to the paper silk, the techniques and styles of art will naturally change. Therefore, Wu Daozi's painting style is bold, while Li is calm. His works, such as Wu Ma Tu (Volume) and Vimalakīrti Tu (Axis), all express the shape, texture, sense of movement and sense of space of objects simply through the light and shade, thickness, reality, weight, speed, softness and density of line drawing, without painting, but they are radiant and ready to come.