Guan Tong

Guan Tong (c. 906-960) was a Chinese painter of the Northern landscape tradition, active during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period and the early Song dynasty, and based in the city of Chang'an. He matters because he is regarded as a key figure in the development of monumental landscape painting in his era.

A pupil of Jing Hao, he produced landscapes with a believable and compelling picture of nature, a quality typical of tenth-century painters. The wide popularity of his distinctive style reflects how important landscape painting had become at the time. He favored "axe-chopped" brushstrokes (fu pi cun) to render the angular, rocky forms of northern mountains, and his strong peaks and densely packed compositions are considered the northern tradition in its most likely form, as scholars understand it today.

Several works are attributed to him, but none survives bearing his signature. Among them is Autumn Mountain Shadow, where a barely visible steep path climbs through rugged peaks. His works also address the cyclical seasons of nature. Scholars regard his paintings, together with certain pieces by Jing Hao, as advanced and impressive for their era rather than as preliminary to the mature Song landscape.