They are also often regarded as the principal figures of the 'Orthodox School' of Chinese landscape painting.

He rose to prominence as a court official and eventually was appointed curator of the imperial collection during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor.

He remained a court official throughout his long career and died at age 73 in 1715.

His style and technique demonstrates influences from, for example, the artist Huang Gongwang, especially in the use of dry brush strokes and ink washes and his use of colour, often making "colour patterns a component of his dense compositional structure, complementing the force of abstract design with the rhythmic flow of colour.

"[4] His 1711 ink and color-on-silk painting, Landscape in the Style of Huang Gongwang, is in Singapore's Asian Civilisations Museum collection and his version of Wang Wei's (now lost) eighth century hand scroll, The Wang River Villa, also painted in 1711, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.