This book brings together the author's case studies on important painters and works in the history of art, such as Gu Kaizhi, Dong Yuan, Xie Huan, and Xingyuan Yaji Tu ("Elegant Gathering of Apricot Gardens"), as well as a number of research notes on Chinese painting and calligraphy written previously. The notes have all elicited positive responses across the academic community and given rise to a paradigm of writing. The author also questions the connoisseurs in Ming and Qing dynasties about the concepts of the paintings in Jin – Tang dynasties and standard about styles. He observes history from the perspective of images, and leads the new trend of art theory and cultural research. In addition to the traditional research on styles and themes of Chinese painting, the complexity and diversity of pictorial history is discussed, which is an innovation on methodology. He puts forth that the study on pictorial history shall go beyond the perspectives of aesthetic and artifacts identification, value the uniqueness of “object”, and explore its significance.