Twenty Lectures on Chinese Painting

Twenty Talks on Chinese Painting focuses on organizing the history of painting and tracing its logical threads, offering readers a complete picture of its development. From the Neolithic Age to the present spans five or six thousand years. That may not seem long from the perspective of human evolution, yet humanity's ability to understand itself and the objective world has changed dramatically. A more comprehensive understanding of the objective world gave rise to advances in knowledge and the birth of numerous disciplines. Painting has moved from rocks, clay, and metal to silk, paper, and even digital formats; its techniques have evolved from line to plane, monochrome to color, and hardware to software. It has shifted from depicting external subjects to expressing the inner world in abstract forms, and from serving practical needs in everyday life to pursuing education and aesthetic appreciation. Its possibilities for development are endless.