The earliest surviving complete treatise on the art of painters in China is the Paintings.

China's earliest surviving complete treatise on the art of the painter is the Paintings, which, like Zhong Rong's Poetry and Yu Shouwu's Calligraphy, is a product of the artistic and literary criticism and characterization that became the order of the day during the Qi and Liang dynasties.

The Paintings, created by Xie He of Liang in the Southern Dynasty, is one of the earliest theoretical writings on painting preserved to this day. In addition to the 27 painters who were graded and evaluated, the Six Methods put forward in the preface of the book as a criterion for evaluating paintings had a great influence on later generations.

Ancient Chinese painters and works to make the style of evaluation. Generally, it is divided into different articles to appreciate the merits and demerits of paintings. The author's insights through the appraisal of painters and works to express, less biographical material. This genre is affected by the Wei and Jin period of the scholarly class on the character temperament, character, style of assessment, the influence of the custom of algae, prevalent in the Six Dynasties, Sui and Tang dynasties, Yuan and Ming after the gradual decrease.

Painting Appreciation

Painting in the preface to the first articulation of the "painting, cover the advantages and disadvantages of all paintings," that is, this book is the assessment of the painter's artistic high and low writings, and puts forward the painting's social function as "a clear exhortation, the rise and fall, the silence of the ages.

This book is a book to assess the quality of the painter's art.

Specifically, it puts forward "six methods of painting", which not only comprehensively summarizes the artistic standards of painting criticism, but also completely establishes the artistic norms of painting creation, which has become an important part of the excellent heritage of painting aesthetics.

And because of the 27 painters from the Three Kingdoms to the period between Qi and Liang were listed and evaluated, and according to the works that the author personally saw, the subject matter, technique, master relationship, and artistic style of these painters were discussed, thus preserving valuable information for the history of ancient Chinese painting.