The art of ancient ancestors in China has no trace of its origin. However, in the ancient literature of China, we can learn about the early explanation of the origin of painting. According to the Book of Changes, Fuxi "looks like everything" by painting hexagrams, which is the earliest painting record.

In the era of the Yellow Emperor, Cang Xie observed the circular curve of Kuixing and the form of "turtle's fingers, bird's feathers and animal's feet are far away", and he created characters with hieroglyphics. This hieroglyph is the origin of painting and writing.

The ancestors gradually created various vivid patterns through painting to express their aesthetic comprehension of things.

2. The intelligence of our ancestors

There are three kinds of primitive paintings we see today-decorative paintings on ceramics, rock paintings and ground paintings.

(1) Decorations on painted pottery

Frogs and black lines have begun to appear on Banpo pottery 5000 years ago, and fish patterns in Yangshao Banpo painted pottery are the most common. Today, it seems that the geometric patterns on these painted pottery and the animal patterns such as birds, fish, frogs and beasts, as well as the shapes of people painted, show that primitive humans have a strong understanding of beauty.

Painted pottery beans with octagonal star pattern can be seen from the description methods of many painted pottery patterns in Neolithic Age, and the painting techniques at that time were quite skilled. The strict continuity of geometric patterns, the vivid modeling of animal and plant patterns, and people's understanding and expression of their own lives also show that they had mastered the "language" of painting at that time.

② "Life photos" on rocks

Rock paintings are pictures drawn and carved on cliff stones in ancient times. For decades, primitive rock paintings have been found in many areas of China. The representative ones are Yinshan Rock Painting in Inner Mongolia, Jiangjunya Rock Painting in Lianyungang, Jiangsu, Huashan Rock Painting in Guangxi, Cangyuan Rock Painting in Yunnan, Hongxian Rock Painting in Sichuan and Tianshan Rock Painting in Xinjiang. These Gu Zhuo and concise pictures record the economic life, social life and religious beliefs of different nationalities in different regions of primitive society, and show the author's understanding of production and life and natural phenomena, including unique aesthetic concepts and unique imagination.

Rock paintings are mostly distributed in frontier minority areas, and many of them reflect nomadic hunting and goose shooting activities. These rock paintings are obviously late, but they are also the remains of people's paintings in the early days of human society, with the characteristics of primitive art and frank artistic charm.

③ Ground painting

1982, a landscape painting was discovered at the Yangshao cultural site in Dadiwan, Qin 'an, Gansu, China. This is the painting material left thousands of years ago, and it is also one of the most important discoveries of China archaeology in painting. The figures and animal patterns in local paintings have obvious gender characteristics. Among the three figures, the figure with male characteristics in the middle is dominant. The figure on the left is long and narrow, slightly curved, with a thin waist and a prominent chest, which is obviously female; A man on the right fell. The ground painting may be the worship of ancestors, and the animals in the frame of the characters may represent the sacrifice to the gods. The brushwork is rough and simple, and a vivid picture is drawn with a few strokes. Earth paintings not only depict characters, but also have a good grasp of the proportion of the human body.

The perfection and clarity of paintings here are rare among archaeological sites. Earth painting reflects the simple and concise painting style of primitive society, indicating that people accumulated rich materials in their long-term production and life at that time.

3. Morality and painting

Due to historical changes, it is difficult for us to know the whole picture of the paintings in Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties. From the literature, the painting art in this period, especially the decorative paintings and palace murals on utensils, was quite prosperous. The progress of archaeological excavation also provides us with physical historical materials.

In Yinxu, Henan, when people were cleaning the crypts and houses, they found a white wall with red patterns and black dots on it, which proved that there were murals on the buildings at the end of Yin Dynasty, which was also the evidence of Zhou Wang's "painting and carving on the palace wall" in Shuoyuan Rebellion.

The Book of Life with the Animal Face Tattooed records such a story, "(Emperor Gaozong) dreamed of giving it to Liang Bi, and his generation was Popo. It is an image of judgment, giving the world a shape next to it, saying that the construction of the wild, only Xiao, stands as a stage. " Draw a portrait from memory and imagination, and use this painting to find the dream man and make him the Prime Minister of Shang Tang. Judging from the bronze crafts and developed murals at that time, it is not surprising that painters at that time had some realistic painting art.

During the prosperous period of ethics in Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, paintings were mostly used for ethics and were created according to ethical standards. Zuo Zhuan records that Yu Xia painted the image of ghosts and gods on the tripod. According to Zhou Li, there are birds, animals, plants and Yunshan in Zunyi. There is also a Humen in Zhou Li, that is, there is a tiger painting on the door. "Confucius' Family Language Zhou Guan" once said: "Confucius' view of the Ming Hall and the inner door all have Yao and Shun, each with its own form of good and evil, and its commandments of prosperity and abolition. Another Duke of Zhou became a king, showing the south to his ministers with his axe. Confucius lingered and looked at it, saying that the follower said,' This week is also prosperous.' Through this record, we know the extensive application of mural art in the Zhou Dynasty, especially in some large buildings such as Tang Ming Palace. The content of murals has developed from totems with religious significance to historical themes with practical educational significance, which shows that the painting in this period mainly has the function of publicity and education.