The Precision of the Song Dynasty To look at the surviving works of Li Anzhong is to witness the technical rigor of the late Northern and early Southern Song Dynasty. He was not a painter of vague abstractions but one of specific, observed life. His activity between 1119 and 1162 places him in a period of intense refinement in Chinese painting, where the focus shifted toward the minute details of the natural world. He worked primarily with color on silk, a medium that demands immediate technical control and leaves no room for error. His brushwork reflects a disciplined approach to the bird-an…