Li was born in 1941 in Xigang, Tainan, Taiwan with a courtesy name of Tsai-chuan. The artist graduated from National College of Fine Arts. He acquired traditional ink-and-wash techniques from artists Kao Yi-feng, Fu Chuan-fu and Hu Ke-ming. Then, he became a pupil of Jiang Jhao-shen and inherited Jiang’s spiritual, poetic literati style. He traveled across mountains and waters to study the texture of them. Eventually, Li developed a style of his own by integrating master teachings, life experiences and his own characters. His style is refined, graceful and ever-changing. He was awarded with the Sun Yat-sen Literature and Arts Award in Chinese painting in 1980. He won the Wu San-lien Arts Award, also in Chinese painting in 1983. The artist has had many solo exhibitions, including one at National Museum of History in 1988; one entitled “Songs of a Big Tree” at Caves Art in 1988; and “Infinite Universe and Buddhism” at Longmen Art Gallery in 1999. Li retired from Taipei National University of the Arts in 2005. The artist has published a book entitled Nature and Painting.

According to the artist, this painting is based on pine words in Erzihping, Taiwan. The two trees in the picture make composition difficult, as they must respectively stand in the front and the back to split the picture into varying left and right.No smokes or clouds are portrayed here. Every stroke is solid, and all the wrinklings overlap. Mineral pigments like cinnabar, mineral blue and mineral green are used to paint and dye, and dry glue is applied to create a gauche-like effect. The painting is really featured by the dark green trees highlighted by red cinnabar dots. Such also enhance a dynamic flow. In fact, Li is good at bringing out the best of the materials at hand. A large area of dark ink is used to express the thickness of the forest and to enhance the contrast between ink color and bright red. This results in a visually enlarged space in the painting. Under the high-rising giant trees, small roads meander through the woods. At the tip of the trees are dark-blue mountains and the sky. The artist uses elongated composition to create a different sense of space and the many contrasting, fun details in it.

Li had taught at Keelung Municipal Chungshan Junior High School for eight years since 1967. He became a student of Jiang Jhao-shen in March 1960 and a member of Keelung Photography Society in 1974. In September of the same year, he won the Golden Prize at the society’s portrait photography contest. Li transferred to Keeling Municipal Junior High School in 1975 and continued teaching there for another three years. In 1976, he was awarded Best Author and Best Film Slide in film slides, as well as Best Picture in black and white photography, at the 11th Keelung Photography Society Member Seasonal Contest. In July of 1979, he had the first solo exhibition at Spring Gallery in Taipei. At the exhibition, his Confucius Temple of Tainan received wide attention. The artist traveled in India and Nepal in 1985 and published Nature and Painting. In 1986, themed exhibition “A Trip to Northern India” was held at Caves Art and Apollo Art Gallery in Taipei. In February of 1987, Li visited three Buddhist countries at the foot of the Himalayas: Bhutan, Sikkim and Nepal. In June, the artist exhibited photos with Tsai Ke-hsin and Kuo Ching-chi in an exhibition entitled “A Trip to the Thousand-year-old Kingdom of Thunder and Dragon, Bhutan.” He was also selected by National Taiwan Museum of History to be a member of an artist delegation, which visited some west-coast cities in the United States and exhibited works there. In 1989, Li set foot on South Africa and mainland China and had many solo exhibitions throughout the year. September 2006, exhibited works at "The Odyssey of Art in Taiwan 1950-2000" organized Taipei Fine Arts Museum and shown in National Art Museum of China.