Abstract
THE HISTORY of Chinese painting preceding the beginning of the Sung dynasty (960) is as yet so little known that it is only with great hesitation that I am discussing a painting which apparently represents a style of earlier origin. When trying to form some ideas as to the paintings of these archaic periods we are mainly obliged to fall back on historical traditions and on works of later dates which reproduce compositions by the old masters or reflect some of their features of style. The original works of early date which still exist are so few and incomplete that they give us information only on certain points, but not about the whole character of painting during those early periods. We have in most cases no possibility of defining their relative importance in the artistic culture of their time.
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