Poet on a Mountaintop

Before we dive in, though, I'd like to recognize the Eastern treatment of lighting, which is, to say the least, minimal.  To use a well known example, take Shen Zhou's Poet on a Mountaintop:

In this work there is almost no attention paid to light.  As the mountains fade into the background they are depicted as being darker, whereas realistically, considering the foggy conditions, they would become lighter as they got farther away.  The darkest tree in the whole composition, just right of center, is at the front of the forest, and also one of the tallest above the ground, therefore it would get the most sunlight, instead of how it is shown here, as the most deeply shadowed.  The most stark example of disregard for lighting is the poet himself.  He casts no shadow.  The clouds are clearly below him, so the light hitting his body would not be diffuse enough to obscure a shadow.  Then where is it?  Ignored by the artist for a very intentional, airy, mystical effect.  This treatment of light is the same in all of the Eastern works we have looked at.  Darkness in a composition implies importance, not shadowing.  Light sources are not important, illumination simply exists.