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Many of Lin Fengmian's works look more like Western painting from exterior view, thus be misinterpreted as not traditional. Even mountains and forests, the most favored subjects by Chinese literati and traditional pictures, he still at the controls of both Chinese and Western form and spirit on hand. But from the meaning of works, they stressed profound moods, endless feelings, make them more tally with the pure of Chinese painting "Pictures of the heart", and reflected distinctive Lin's painting style.

In short, Lin Fengmian's integration of Chinese and Western art styles embodies more on its concept. He turns from studying Western Naturalism to have sincere belief in Western modern art trend of thoughts such as Impressionism, Fauvism and Cubism etc. As a result, he has been an advocate and practicer for the concept of using modern Western art movement into Chinese painting. This is particularly prominent in a series of his mountains and forests works. This Mountain Sunset picture is a classic demonstration of this proposition. The keynote is ink, the artistic conception comes down in one continuous line with tradition paintings too. But the tones, natural lights, characteristic that emphasizing the surface rather than the line are closely linked with Western paintings. The lines which Chinese painting rely for existence are draw out the "ink" character, the heavy black color used in his works to present the forests are viewed as a color and lose the special significance in traditional Chinese paintings. Mountain Sunset had plump composition, contrast of light and shades clear the picture level and make it an integrated mass. The emphasize of surface plumped the whole picture, thick but transparent, not stiff and blocked, the undulating hills and the intersection of sky and horizon, the lever of mountain corresponding to the dense forests, painter made painstaking efforts on the sparse or thick and false or true, airtight in true part, transparent in the false part, make the work sparse or thick properly and become complementary, the sunset here not dim but warm.