What is the significance of Gu Kaizhi's Essay on Painting in the history of China painting?

Gu Kaizhi has also made outstanding achievements in painting theory. There are three painting theories today: Wei Jinsheng's Painting Praise, On Painting and Painting Yuntai Mountain. He put forward some viewpoints, such as the theory of vivid expression, the theory of nourishing the spirit with form, and the theory of thinking wonderfully. He advocated that painting should express the mental state and personality characteristics of characters, attach importance to the experience and observation of objects, grasp the internal essence of objects through thinking wonderfully, and write the spirit with form on the basis of shape. Gu Kaizhi's painting and his theory laid the foundation for the development of traditional painting in China.

Gu Kaizhi is knowledgeable and talented. He is good at poetry and calligraphy, especially at painting. Statues of workers, Buddha statues, animals, landscapes, etc. At that time, it was called "talent, painting and stupidity". His painter Fawei has changed again. His paintings are full of colors, slightly embellished with rich colors, and do not seek halo decoration. The handwriting is meticulous and firm, such as silkworms spinning and spring clouds fluttering. Historically, Cao Buxing, Gu Kaizhi, Lu Tanwei and Zhang Sengyou were collectively called "four outstanding figures in the Six Dynasties". He is proficient in painting theory, and his arguments such as "thinking wonderfully" and "writing spirit with form" have great influence on the development of Chinese painting.