Title: Chinese Painting: Characteristics, Types, History
Headings: Chinese Painting (from c.200 BCE)
Characteristics and Aesthetics

Chinese Painting (from c.200 BCE)
Characteristics and Aesthetics
Content: For specific art movements,
see: History of Art. Introduction
Chinese art has a strong tradition of painting and the associated art of calligraphy. One of the earliest forms was the painting of Chinese pottery, as exemplified by the so-called Painted Pottery cultures during the era of Neolithic art, the last phase of the Stone Age. For details, see, for instance, Neolithic Art in China (c.7500-2000 BCE), as well as the Bronze Age period exemplified by Shang Dynasty Art (c.1600-1000 BCE) and Zhou Dynasty Art (1050-221 BCE), whose traditions and practices were handed on to Qin Dynasty Art (221-206 BCE) and Han Dynasty Art (206 BCE - 220 CE), which witnessed the first examples of Chinese porcelain, around 100 CE. Compared to Western art, Chinese painting is more concerned with water based techniques, rather than oils or acrylics. In addition, Chinese painting is traditionally more stylized, more abstract and less realistic than Western types. It also emphasizes the importance of white space and may be said to favour landscape painting over portrait art, or figure painting. Traditional Chinese painting ("guo hua") is similar to calligraphy - which itself is considered to be the highest form of painting - and is executed with a brush (made of animal hair) dipped in black ink (made from pine soot and animal glue) or coloured ink. Oils are not generally used.