What are the characteristics of landscape painting in the Northern Song Dynasty?

Landscape painting in the Northern Song Dynasty is characterized by the complete unity of nature, and landscape has become an absolute existence full of solemn atmosphere, achieving the harmonious unity of naturalism and idealism.

It's not a landscape of one place at a time, but a small universe of heaven and earth, which has become the embodiment of Tao. The achievement of landscape painting in the Northern Song Dynasty is based on the development of ink painting techniques and the deliberate pursuit of truth in landscape painting since the middle and late Tang Dynasty.

As far as framing is concerned, the paintings in the Northern Song Dynasty broke through the panoramic framing of predecessors and appeared partial framing. Among them, Fan Kuan's painting system in the Northern Song Dynasty is unique, which is a major breakthrough in the development of China's landscape painting and provides a useful reference for the development of literati painting in the Northern Song Dynasty. Later generations called Fan Kuan, Li Cheng and Dong Yuan "the three schools of the Northern Song Dynasty".

Because of the huge demand of people, it is an inevitable trend that painting becomes a commodity. More importantly, painters' guild organizations appeared in the capital of Song Dynasty, which encouraged the folk painting.

Later, because people from all walks of life like painting as an indoor decoration and appreciation object, the form and arrangement of painting have also changed a lot. In the past, the most important forms of murals could only be found in temples, and works painted on paper and silk were generally posted on indoor walls to meet the rapidly changing decorative requirements of appreciation interest.

Not only walls, indoor screens, painting barriers, beds, chairs and other wooden furniture, including vertical, horizontal, square, group, long scroll and other painting forms mounting, have become an important display form in this period.

Moreover, people began to hang scroll paintings indoors, which became popular in teahouses, restaurants and living rooms. Encouraged by the extremely prosperous economy, the development of painting art has also obtained rich sources of materials.