Bird-and-flower painting
Bird-and-flower painting (in Chinese 花鸟画) is a kind of Chinese painting prevalent in East Asia named after its subject matter. Normally, most bird-and-flower paintings belong to the scholar-artist style of Chinese painting. History. According to Chinese tradition, bird-and-flower painting covers "flowers, birds, fish, and insects" (Traditional Chinese: 花鳥魚蟲, Simplified Chinese: 花鸟鱼虫 "huā, niǎo, yú, chóng"). It can thus deal with a wide range of natural topics, including flowers (plants), fish, insects, birds, pets (dogs, cats), etc. The "huaniao hua" (花鳥畫) or "bird-and-flower painting" is proper of 10th  century China. The most representative artists are Huang Quan 哳㥳 (c. 900 – 965) and Xu Xi 徐熙 (937–975). They are the masters of two schools: the first school was led by Huang Quan (imperial painter). It is characterised by an "outline" method of brush work, with emphasis on bright colours filling a meticulously outline ("gongbi"). The other school was led by Xu Xi (never entered into officialdom) and typically used techniques associated with ink-and-wash painting. Varieties. According to painting technique: