As a leading figure among painters from Hebei in the Song Dynasty ( 960 AD-1279 AD ), Xu Daoning ( 许道宁 ) played a connecting role in the painting circles during the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty ( 960 AD-1127 AD ). Xu Daoning’s path in life is closely related to his painting work. In his early years, Xu Daoning sold medicines and gave paintings as compliments in the capital, Bianjing ( now Kaifeng ), and his painting style was scrupulously neat and exquisite. In his middle age, he entered the Painting Academy, where he learned from Li Cheng ( 李成 ) out of his free will and became the most accomplished member of the Li Cheng School of Painting. At this time, his paintings were bleak and spacious. In his later years, he visited famous mountains, taking nature as his teacher. His paintings became wild and unrestrained with natural grace. Xu Daoning’s unique painting techniques of “simple and fast brushwork” and “straight crease on the peak” and his painting style of “steep mountains and sharp peaks, and strong and tough trees” have had a profound influence on the development of landscape painting in later generations.