The early "Four Kings" school supported by the royal family became the orthodox school of painting. They take learning from the ancients as the main theme, admire Dong, Wang and Yuan, and pay attention to the interest and skills of pen and ink, but the content lacks vitality. Their landscape painting style influenced the whole Qing Dynasty. In the south of the Yangtze River, a group of painters with individuality and innovative spirit emerged. They are mainly adherents of the Ming dynasty, unable to cooperate with the rulers of the Qing dynasty politically, and their artistic opinions are different from those of the four kings in the north. The representative figures are "Four Monks", "Eight Schools in Jinling" and "Xin 'an School". Among them, the achievements of the four monks are the most outstanding and have the greatest influence on future generations.
From the last years of Kangxi to Jiaqing, with the consolidation of political power, the unification of territory, the stability of society and the prosperity of economy, the so-called "prosperity of kanggan" appeared. Painting is also more active, and famous artists come forth in large numbers. The contents and forms of palace paintings supported by the royal family have become more diverse, especially the achievements of figure paintings. In Yangzhou in the south, due to the developed business and convenient transportation, many painters concentrated on selling paintings for a living, forming the Yangzhou Painting School, and its representative painter was called the "Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou". They inherited the tradition of the four monks and sages and appeared in the painting world with an innovative face. Flowers, such as Four Gentlemen, are often used as themes to express temperament, and various means, mainly ink and wash, are adopted, and the form is even more eclectic, which has had a far-reaching impact on later generations and even today.
Eight eccentrics in Yangzhou refer to some professional painters who were active in Yangzhou from the middle of Kangxi to the end of Qianlong in Qing Dynasty. They have different opinions. Because of its large number, it is called "Yangzhou Painting School". In fact, various schools of Yangzhou Painting School have different artistic characteristics, but there are also similarities. First of all, because most of them come from the intellectual class, although some have worked as small officials, they all make a living by selling paintings in the end, so they often use paintings to express their grievances; Secondly, they all pay attention to artistic individuality, stress innovation, emphasize the spirit of words, and are good at using freehand brushwork in ink and wash, with strong subjective and emotional colors in their pictures, and pay attention to the organic combination of poetry and painting. These factors make them form a strong artistic trend, inject vitality into the painting world with original spirit, and have an important impact on the development of ink freehand brushwork in later generations.
Palace painting in Qing Dynasty was very popular in Kang and Gan dynasties. A large number of famous painters have emerged, including court painters who specialize in the institutions of painting academies set up by the palace, as well as ministers who hold official positions and outstanding painters outside the courtyard. Everyone is valued by the royal family and has different skills. There were Jiao Bingzhen, Leng Mei, Tang Dai and others in the Kangxi period, and Ding, Jin Tingbiao, Yao, Xu Yang and others in the Qianlong period. There are also some foreign missionaries and painters, represented by Lang Shining. The themes they paint every day are portraits of the Empress Dowager, members of the royal family, ministers and other upper-class figures, palace life paintings showing scenes of life in the palace, historical literature paintings recording major contemporary historical events, landscape paintings and flower-and-bird paintings used to decorate the palace, etc. There are various forms of painting in the college. There are two painting methods: meticulous painting and line drawing for figures, meticulous painting and boneless painting for flowers and birds, and four kings and one school for landscapes. In addition, the painting style of the Union Center is all the rage, but ink freehand brushwork has not spread.
During the Daoguang period, the Qing Dynasty gradually declined and became a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. With the decline of politics, literati painting, which is mainly pleasing to the eye and nourishing nature, gradually declined. In order to meet the needs of the new citizen class, new changes have taken place in theme, content, style and skills. The famous schools are Shanghai School and Lingnan School in Guangdong.
During Jiaqing and Daoguang years, two famous figure painters appeared, namely Gage and Fei. They are good at painting figures and Buddha statues, especially ladies, and are called "changing schools" and "paying schools".
The faction of the Four Kings gradually declined during Daoguang and Xianfeng years, and there were not many successful painters. Only Tang Yifen and Dai's landscape paintings made a breakthrough and were valued by people at that time. Also, the landscapes of Hu Yuan, Wu and Wu were full of praise for a while. Shanghai, which became a commercial port after the Opium War, has also become the cultural center of the southeast region because of its economic development. Many artists who sell paintings for a living moved here and started their career as artists in Shanghai. Because they are facing a new class of citizens, their art has also changed unconsciously. In addition to maintaining the requirements of traditional literati painting, they paid more attention to absorbing nutrition from western painting techniques and learning from folk art, forming a group called "sea painting school", referred to as "Shanghai school" Its representatives are Zhao, Xu Gu, Ren Xiong, Ren Yi, Wu Changshuo and others.