Early in the Stone Age, spirals, zigzags, dots, or animals were painted on potteries. During the Warring States Period, our ancient Chinese artists began to represent the world around them. Figures such as fish, frogs, deer, birds, flowers, tree leaves and dancing people could be found on decorative bronzes, carved jade and lacquer ware.

The traditional Chinese Painting is also known as Guohua– “national” or “native painting”. It was mainly painted on silk, rice paper or walls.With the development of techniques, traditional Chinese painting can be divided into

three categories: figures, landscapes, and birds-and-flowers.The tools usually

used are brushes, ink and Chinese traditional paint. There are the two main techniques in Chinese painting: Gongbi (工筆) -- often referred to as "court-style" painting and Shuimo(水墨), loosely termed watercolor or brush painting. This style is also referred to as freehand style.

Figure Painting

Artists from the Han to the Tang dynasties mainly painted the human figure. The Tang Dynasty was especially considered the golden age of figure painting. During that time, figure painting flourished at the royal court. Artists such as Zhou Fang showed the splendor of court life with his paintings of emperors, palace ladies, and imperial horses. Those figures were portrayed with a robustness and monumentality unequalled in Chinese painting.At the same time, this art of painting also provide role models from the past.The human figure of the Tang artists was mostly outlined figures

with fine black lines. Besides, the artists often used brilliant color and paid great attention to elaborate detail. Except for one artist, the master Wu Daozi, who painted the human figure only with black ink and free brushstrokes. It is he who made the public realize that ink paintings were not only preliminary sketches or outlines to be filled in with color. Instead they were valued as finished works of art.

Since the Song Dynasty, the range of themes showed in figure painting began to extend. Religious ideas were added into this art of painting. With the improvement of techniques, historical character and stories of everyday life became extremely popular.

The earliest known landscape painting was the Spring Outing by Zhan Daqian of the Sui Dynasty. It shows us a beautiful picture: gentlemen riding and ladies boating; a waterfall behind a bridge, near slopes and distant mountains are drawn with clear, fluent lines. Beginning in the Tang Dynasty, landscape

painting had established an independent art form. By using a new style called “Shuimohua” --monochromatic and sparse style, the artists wanted to grasp an emotion or atmosphere so as to catch the "rhythm" of nature instead of reproducing exactly the appearance of nature. Many critics consider landscape to be the highest form of Chinese painting.Landscape painting enjoyed a great popularity throughout the Tang Dynasty. This style reflected people’s interest in nature. It gradually developed into two different styles, namely the “blue-and-green” as well as the “ink-and-wash” landscapes. For blue-and-green landscape paintings, artists used bright blue, green and red colors to create a richly decorative style. The ink-and-wash landscape relied on vivid brushwork with varying degrees of intensity of ink to express the artists’ conception of nature, his own emotions and individuality. The artists’ use of ink and brush to paint a landscape changed, depending on the scenery itself, the weather, the time of day and the season.

Bird-and-flower Painting

This art of painting received its name according to the subject matter. Bird-and-flower painting was separated from decorative art to form an independent genre around the 9th century. According to Chinese traditions, bird-and-flower painting covers “flowers, birds, fish, and insects”. For many well-known artists, their themes included a rich variety of flowers, fruits, insects and fish. Many of the scholarly painters working with ink and brush used a great economy of line.Their paintings illustrate things such as plum blossoms,

orchids, bamboo,chrysanthemums, pines and cypresses which reflect their own ideals and character. Normally, most bird-and-flower paintings belong to the scholar-artist style of Chinese painting. Qi Baishi and Zhang Daqian are two outstanding representatives of this bird-and-flower painting.Because of varying techniques, bird-and-flower painting is classified into following categories: Ink-and-Wash Painting, Fine-brush, Freehand style and Fine-brush with freehand style.

What’s the modern style of Chinese Paintings?

Because of the New Culture Movement, Chinese artists started to use Western techniques. In the early years of the People's Republic of China, artists were strongly influenced by the painting style of the Soviet Union. After the Hundred Flowers Campaign of 1956-57, traditional Chinese painting experienced a significant revival. Along with these developments in professional art circles, there was a proliferation of peasant art depicting everyday life in the rural areas on wall murals and in open-air painting exhibitions. Since 1978, new exchanges were set up with groups of foreign artists, and Chinese artists began to experiment with new subjects and techniques.