He forms a link between earlier painters such as Guo Xi, Fan Kuan and Li Cheng and later artists such as Xia Gui and Ma Yuan.

He perfected the technique of "axe-cut" brush-strokes and his style of painting became for what is regarded as the academy-style landscape of the Southern Song.

He developed and perfected the technique of the so-called "ax-cut" brushstrokes, which gave rocks and mountains a particularly fine quality.

It reads: "Painted by Li Tang of Ho-yang in Spring of the chia-ch'en year of the Hsüan-ho Reign of the Great Song [Dynasty]."

Other works commonly attributed to Li Tang are Intimate Scenery of River and Mountains, a long landscape scroll, and Sitting on Rocks Gazing at the Mist, both in the possession of the National Palace Museum.