Page 371 - Chinese Art, Vol II By Stephen W. Bushell

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PICTORIAL ART. 117

The list of artists named in the imperial preface of the ency-
clopjedia which has just been cited, extending, as it does, from
Ts'ao Fu-hsing, who flourished during the third century a.d., to
Wu Tao-yuan, the most celebrated painter of the eighth century
A.n., marks what may be called the classical period of Chinese
art. Taking this and its context as our guide we may con-
veniently disregard all minor divisions, local or otherwise, and
study the history of Chinese pictorial art, from the earliest times to
the beginning of the reigning dynasty, under the following three
main headings or periods :
1. Primitive Period, up to a.d. 264.
2. Classical Period, a.d. 265-960.
3. Period of Development and Decline, a.d. 960-1643.

I. Primitive Period up to a.d. 264.
The invention of painting is generally attributed, as we have seen,
to Shih Huang, a minister of the legendary Yellow Emperor, but
we know nothing of the actual work of so remote an antiquity. He
is supposed to have been a contemporary of Ts'ang Hsieh, who first
taught the art of tracing the earliest pictographic script with a
style, and so invented Chinese writing. The earliest official robes
and hats provided for sacrificial and court ceremonies and the
symbolical banners and flags used on such occasions are said to have
been painted in colours on plain silk, as well as woven and em-
broidered in textile stuffs, but the two arts are not always clearly
distinguished in early documents. The Chou Li, or " Ritual of the
Chou Dynasty," translated into French by Biot, may be referred to
for a set of conventional rules on the application and arrangement
of colours, as laid down by the Chinese in the twelfth century B.C.
The decoration of the interior walls of buildings was one of the
earliest branches of pictorial art. The Chinese annals refer fre-
quently to ancient emperors who had the audience halls of their
palaces covered with mural paintings, the subjects of which are said