Keywords
Art History
Painting
Painting on silk. In ancient China, before paper-making was developed, silk or haku (also called so 繪) was used for paintings and calligraphy (called hakusho 帛書). Generally, the subjects of these paintings were Buddhist, depicting cosmology, mythological tales, and religious rituals. Many such paintings, dating from the Han Dynasty, were discovered in the Mawangdui (Jp: Ma Ōtai 馬王堆) tombs at Changsha.