Jieziyuan Huazhuan

Jieziyuan Huazhuan , sometimes known as Jieziyuan Huapu , is a manual of Chinese painting complied during the early-Qing Dynasty. Many renowned Chinese painters, like Qi Baishi, began their drawing lessons with the manual.

The work was commissioned by Shen Xinyou , son-in-law of the famous playwright , whose mansion in was known as Jieziyuan, or Mustard Seed Garden. Shen possessed the teaching materials of Li Liufang , a painter of the late-Ming Dynasty, and commissioned Wang Gai to edit and expand those materials with the aim of producing a manual for landscape painting. The result was the first part of ''Jieziyuan Huazhuan'', which, published in 1679 in five colours, comprises five ''juan'' or fascicles. Li Yu, as the publisher, wrote a preface for this part. The first fascicle deals with the general principles of landscape painting, the second the painting of trees, the third that of hills and stones, the fourth that of people and houses, and the fifth comprises the selected works of great landscape painters.

Two more parts, which deal with the painting of flora and fauna, were produced by Wang and his two brothers. Shen promised a forth part, but never published one. A forth part, which deals with portraits, was produced by some quick profit-seeking publisher, though. Chao Xun , dissatisfied with the fake, produced his own sequel, as well as carefully reproduced the first three volumes. Today the reprint of the first three volumes of the work is usually based on Chao's reproduction.

An English translation of the work, ''The Tao of Painting - A study of the ritual disposition of Chinese painting. With a translation of the ''Chieh Tzu Yuan Hua Chuan'' or ''Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting 1779-1701, was made by Mai-mai Sze and published in New York in 1956''.