As early as six or seven thousand years ago, ancient ancestors painted beautiful and abstract patterns such as fish pattern, petal pattern and vortex pattern on pottery in black and white ... such as this one.
In today's view, it is entirely the painting style of kindergarten children, and there is almost no aesthetic feeling. But from the perspective of archaeological research, its value lies in that it is the earliest painting in China; From the perspective of painting, people at that time used such lines to draw their understanding of nature and everything. People at that time understood them, and thousands of years later we also understood their simple and straightforward expressions.
After the Warring States period, especially in the Han Dynasty, the ancients began to draw silk paintings with bright mineral pigments such as cinnabar and azurite. Like the famous one.
Unfortunately, no matter the Qin, Han, Wei and Jin dynasties, the names of painters at that time were basically submerged by time and were unknown in history, because painters at that time were considered as low-level craftsmen and were not valued by society.
It was not until Gu Kaizhi in the Eastern Jin Dynasty that famous painters began to be known to us. And why is Gu Kaizhi called "the father of painting"? Because he is the first China painter who can find his name and image in historical documents.
It can be seen from his "Luoshen Fu Tu" that Chinese painting in Wei and Jin Dynasties was basically "line drawing", while Gu Kaizhi's figure painting, steamed bread-like mountains and mushroom-like trees were all pure line drawing with simple coloring in the middle. Gu Kaizhi's lines are called "Silk Drawing of Spring Silkworm" by art history. Lines are characterized by uniform thickness and quietness.
After Gu Kaizhi's era, Qin, chess, calligraphy and painting became the elegance and symbol of China literati, and painting began to be more and more respected by the society.
During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, China was divided into many small countries and small courts. One of the famous emperors who advocated Buddhism was Liang Wudi. His official position is "Knowing Mi Ge and Knowing Petrochemical", and the incumbent is Zhang Sengyou, one of the earliest court painters in China history.
The ancients advocated astronomical phenomena as the foundation of the country and the learning of emperors. Even every farmer must learn to know the stars from the sky, so that he can plant good land and have a good harvest.
As a court painter, his works are inseparable from such themes. In his paintings, the light and dark changes and contrast of lines make the characters more stereoscopic in vision and sense of volume.
This is the "concave-convex method" he learned from Indian Buddha paintings and made some innovations. This is an innovation and progress compared with Gu Kaizhi's line drawing.
In Tang Dynasty, Wu Daozi, a folk "painter" who thought that temples painted murals, was born in the folk, and his painting techniques were free and unrestrained. His lines are smooth and energetic, as if they were blown by the wind.
For example, Born of Gautama Buddha.
The headscarf of the woman in the middle floated, and the clothes of the people next to her flew like the wind blowing wheat waves. This is what the so-called "five generations of party style" means. Although it is a "wild road" from temple murals, it is not inferior to the court painters at that time.
If you want to know more about the story behind Chinese painting and feel its artistic value, you can start by reading books and visiting exhibitions. If you encounter an explanation, it will be more perfect.