Traditional Chinese culture is recorded not only in historical books and documents, but also in architectural records, such as ancient city walls, palaces, temples, pagodas, and grottos; artifacts, such as bronze objects, weapons, bronze mirrors, coins, clocks, jade and pottery objects, and curios; and folk culture, including song and dance, embroidery, cuisine, clothing, tea ceremonies, drinking games, lanterns, riddles, martial arts, chess, and kites.

Imbued with the distinctive romance and charm of the East, Chinese art has garnered acclaim all over the world. Chinese calligraphy and painting, which appeared and evolved in tandem, are the guiding force of China's fine arts. They embody China's humanist spirit, and are unparalleled in the arts of the world.

The number of cultures that have produced the art of calligraphy can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Of them, China has the most ancient calligraphic tradition.  Calligraphy has its source in writing. The earliest known form of Chinese writing, consisting of primitive pictographs, has been found engraved on 5000-year-old Neolithic pottery shards.

The Chinese system of writing, which employs pictographs rather than alphabets, has been in existence for several thousand years. Chinese writing is not only an expression of Chinese culture, but also one of the great achievements of early human civilization. Pictographic Chinese characters resemble an ancient fossil record in that they vividly capture the natural, social, and spiritual face of the ancient  world, and reflect the evolution of both the Chinese people and human society. Chinese language and writing are inseparable from the achievements of Chinese culture, maturing alongside society to become steadily more expressive and refined.

  China's painting tradition is extremely ancient as well. When tracing the origins of Chinese painting, what first comes to mind are the elegantly engraved prehistoric pots produced by China's "painted pottery" culture, dating from 5,000 to 6,000 years ago. By the time of the Warring States Period, Chinese painting had developed into a distinctive and mature art form. Colored drawings on silk from this period, unearthed from the tomb of the King of Chu in Changsha (Central China's Hunan Province), are the oldest existing drawings in China and the world. Chinese painting continued to develop during the Eastern and Western Jin Dynasties (265-420), and flourished during the Sui (581-618), Tang (618-907), Song (960-1279), Yuan (1271-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) Dynasties.

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