Painting in the traditional style is known today in Chinese as guó huà (simplified Chinese: 国画; traditional Chinese: 國畫), meaning "national painting" or "native painting", as opposed to Western styles of art.
Traditional Chinese painting is popular in China, and has long history.

Chinese water-ink paintings, also known as Scholar Style, was popularized during the Song Dynasty and is still prevalent today. Its distinctive features include the delicate application of ink and expressive brushwork to depict the textures of mountains, rocks, water, clouds, and other natural elements.

Ink and wash painting without colors is a more elegant form that is respected by the literati, and although there are literati paintings with colors, they are usually set in very light and elegant colors. Therefore, people sometimes equate ink painting with literati painting, which means that ink painting sometimes includes literati painting with light colors.