In Chinese culture, people believe, calligraphy and painting from the same source. Since the Chinese origin of Chinese writing is ideographic, design charts were, in fact, when he wrote very ideographic characters. But before Chinese writing developed, is the ancient Chinese painting began in primitive societies.

Painted pottery has been an important symbol of human civilization, the Neolithic era, and a large number of painted pottery excavated at the site of Banpo, Xian, Shaanxi Province in northwest China. The decorations were painted on vessels geometric graphics as well as animals and plants. About the pot shown here are samples of a human person and fish. On the summit of the human form is a three-cornered hat, and there are two fish each side of the face and mouth. The sections above the eyebrow and under her lips painted a decorative color. Before the human face is a big fish. Probably the human face represents a value of primitive tribes in a religious ceremony, and the fish appear in the mouth, the desire of the peoples of food abundance on fishing and hunting. This imaginative work depicts the life of Chinese origin in the Neolithic period. In another pot, pottery excavated at Shangsunjiazhai dance in the province of Qinghai, also in northwestern China, during the primitive. The ancestors, moving pace in five in a group. The numbers are clear and bright, not copies of objects, but abstract concepts of art created by the imagination. The Chinese ancestors, and has left a large number of images on the rocks, fishing, hunting, war and nomadic life.

For the Spring and Autumn and warring States period, people began painting on silk, which is an appropriate structure for the brush as a ceramic or stone. This painting on silk of Dragon and Phoenix (Long Feng RenWu Bo Hua) is one of the oldest projects in China, was excavated in 1949 from a tomb of the ancient Chu State Changsha, Hunan province in central China. The witch has a slim body and narrow waist and his lips and sleeves are Vermilion. The dragon and phoenix fly in the sky guiding the souls of the characters in the sky, the overall picture has formulated a smooth, black lines with striking images. The ancient Chinese were very concerned of the other world, and many images were devoted to the subject of Souls Day. Another painting on silk, unearthed from the tomb of the Western Han Dynasty Mawangdui in Changsha, showed the reality of this world and the imagined life under the earth and sky. The main character was a life of luxury in this world, enjoyed after his death, asked his family, two dragons led the soul to heaven to enjoy eternal life. The artist uses precise, expressive lines show the two major scenes and details. Metallic colors between the lines is still alive, even after being buried in the tomb more than 2,000 years.

Cutting of brick and stone relief was very artistic works of the dynasty of Han, the presentation of the material and spiritual life of the time. The stone relief Ancestral Hall Wu Jiaxiang County province of Shandong, eastern China, is one of the best of them. The relief shows scenes of everyday life: Metzger kill chickens and sheep, and chefs prepare the fish, turtles and ducks in the kitchen. Outside, the raging fire pot and steam from the pot. Other topics for the brick and stone relief works are historical facts and figures, and stories. These projects are similar to the narrative paintings of Western countries. Beauticians German Gotthold Ephraim Lessing wrote in Laoco枚n, the framers of this story, you need to complete the scenes and moments for their projects. The reliefs in stone and brick from the Han dynasty, many of these wonderful scenes and moments can be found, and had a profound effect on the number of painting and genre painting in China.