He is especially famous for his Taoist and Buddhist figure paintings. He once painted the walls of two cloisters in Ji 'an Temple in Chang 'an, which is quite famous. In the Song Dynasty, Yan's works were collected by the imperial court, and Taoism and Buddhism accounted for more than half of them. He is also engaged in portrait work, and his portrait is created in recognition of meritorious service. In the ninth year of Wude (626), the eighteen pictures of Qin Dynasty were portraits of Fang, Du Ruhui, etc. 18 literati advisers under Li Shimin, the king of Qin. They are portraits of people, depicting the shapes of people. In this picture, everyone's figure, appearance, clothing, age and expression are vividly and concretely depicted. In the seventeenth year of Zhenguan (643), Lingyange painted portraits of 24 people, including Wuji, Li, Fang and Du Ruhui, which became another large-scale political portrait creation activity after the portraits of Qilin Pavilion and Yuntai in Han Dynasty. The portrait of Lingyange in Tang Dynasty no longer exists. In the fifth year of Yuan You in the Northern Song Dynasty (1090), You Shixiong once painted a stone with a chalk book. At present, there are still a few stone carvings in linyou county, Shaanxi Province, including the four statues of Xiao Li, Xiao Li, Xiao Qin and Xiao Qin, all of which are upright, but they are afraid of ruining their facial images. According to Du Fu's "Dan Qing Yin" in the Tang Dynasty, Yan was also appointed as a portrait of Emperor Taizong, which was later spread on the east wall of Chang 'an Hall and became a famous monument for a while. Yan Zhenrong was Emperor Taizong, eighteen sons of Qin family, twenty-four outstanding figures of Lingyange, and twenty-four outstanding figures of Lingyange.
This painting depicts Emperor Taizong Li Shimin and his ministers vividly. It was a masterpiece at that time, and people praised it as "a model of a painter". During the reign of Xuanhe in the Northern Song Dynasty, there were still 42 works of Yan in the palace, including Xizhi, Dou Jiande, Li Simo, Hero of Lingyange, Advice from Wei Zhi and Buji. Yan's existing works (or manuscripts) handed down from generation to generation include Kings of Past Dynasties (now in Boston Art Museum), Little Lanting, Walking Map, Gongtu and so on. "Walking Map" depicts the meeting between Emperor Taizong and the Tibetan envoys who welcomed Princess Wencheng into Tibet, and it is a historical picture reflecting the marriage between China and Tibet. Yan's works include Gu Di Tu (Boston Museum of Art, USA) and Guan Gong Tu (National Palace Museum, Taipei), which depicts the scenes of distant nationalities and diplomatic envoys going to the Tang Dynasty for general employment, and earned Wang Xizhi's calligraphy from the monk's eloquence with clever tricks. Preface to Lanting (this picture is two volumes and one episode). Although the relationship between these works and Yan needs further study, they basically reflect the painting style of the early Tang Dynasty.