Abstract
Mural art develops alongside human history. Since the cave-dwelling era, humans have used murals to express their understanding of nature, reverence for life, and worship of the unknown. Before modern oil painting techniques improved in Europe, murals served as a primary form of artistic expression. In China, before painting materials shifted to rice paper and scroll painting, murals also served as the main style of painting. This study examines how different regions and ethnic groups share similar perspectives on nature and society, as well as how their artistic expression methods and image features are closely related. It also explores how the earliest murals are painted on the stone walls and rocks of caves using mineral pigments or animal fats as painting materials. After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the emergence of new technologies and materials promotes the exploration of new painting styles and changes the history of Chinese painting. Based on the analysis of the rock paintings discovered so far and their spatial environments, their functions could not have been purely for appreciation. They were likely created for witchcraft, idol worship, and sacrificial purposes. Ancient Chinese mural art had a long history of more than a thousand years of development across the Qin and Han Dynasties, the Six Dynasties, and the Sui and Tang Dynasties. The surviving works were rich in content and exquisitely produced. The intersection and integration of murals had multidimensional characteristics. The art of murals had a long history of development and a sufficiently deep vertical dimension. Because mural art had compatible characteristics, it also had a sufficiently wide horizontal dimension, and the boundary of its cross-fusion horizontal dimension was expandable. Compared with oil painting, printmaking, carving, and other art forms, the cross-integration span of murals was broad, making it suitable for multidimensional exploration and research. Therefore, this study had significant academic value.
