ABSTRACT
I intend to give only a brief outline of the history of Chinese painting, to provide the reader with a little solidity of background, against which I may throw, as on a screen, the ideas of the following chapters. I shall mention few names, being of the opinion that a name without a “life “attached is not only bewildering but pointless. Whenever an artist has inaugurated some new movement or style which has had an important bearing upon the subsequent development of our painting I have introduced him by name, and occasionally spoken of one or two distinguished followers, in order that the reader may be aware of their period and significance when he comes across them in other parts of the book. It is my purpose to clarify the flow of ideas and inner meanings, rather than to maintain historical sequence.
