Chinese ancient painting was of long history and unique style. After thousands of years’ changes and improvement, it has rich ethical style and distinctive character of the times. There are not many scroll paintings left for us to recall the traditional culture.
Scroll painting is a kind of artistic work by painting on paper or silk. From the Warring States Period (475-221BC) to the period before the Opium War (1644-1840) in the Qing Dynasty, Chinese painting had come a long way during the 2,000 years, and its style had also experienced many changes.
Characters in Human Reining Dragon and Dragon,Phoenix and Beauties,silk paintings of the ChuStatein the Warring States Period, are very vivid. Though they are not scroll paintings in the real sense, the high artistic level of that period is still appreciable. In the silk paintings and Daoyin Tu unearthed in the Mawangdui Han (206BC-220AD) tombs, people can read from their elegant composition that paintings of that period had reached a very high level. The Three Kingdoms Period (220-280), the Jin Dynasty (265-420) and the Southern and Northern Dynasties (386-589) are very important periods of Chinese painting history. Although there were wars and many dynastic changes during this period, active intellectual life of different schools provided a great impetus to artistic development. Well-known grotto murals, tomb paintings, stone carvings, brick carvings and lacquer paintings were produced during that period, and a number of virtuosos emerged in Chinese calligraphy and painting. Gu Kaizhi, known as the founder of traditional Chinese painting, and his scroll paintings, represented the painting style of the period. Gu also made great contribution in summarizing painting theories. His theoretical works included Painting Thesis and Notes on Painting the Yuntai Mountain. His Graphic Theory later became a basic theory for traditional Chinese painting. According to historical records, Gu created more than 70 paintings based on historical stories, Buddha, human figures, birds, animals, mountains and rivers. His three existing scroll paintings areNvshi Zhen Painting,Luoshen Appraisal PaintingandLienv Renzhi Painting,which are the earliest examples of scroll paintings.
