Silk painting refers to paintings on silk. They are a traditional way of painting in Asia.
One of the earliest surviving Chinese silk paintings is a 2-metre long T-shaped painting, dated around 165 BCE, from the Mawangdui. Though painting on silk quickly gave way to painting on other forms.
The technique. Silk painting uses gutta as a resist,meaning that fancy patterns can be achieved.
The Tibetan Thangka is the best known religious painting.
Silk painting (Tranh lụa) was a traditional artisanry in Vietnam. There has been some old silk paintings, e.g. portraits of Nguyễn Trãi, Phùng Khắc Khoan, Trịnh Đình Kiên, Phan Huy Cẩn, Phan Huy Ích, Phan Huy Thực, Phan Huy Vịnh dated from Lê and Nguyễn dynasty.
Silk paintings of modern period in Vietnam were taken up by some of the students and French teachers at the EBAI in Hanoi during the 1930s. The earliest representative of the new interest in silk painting was the 1931 Paris exhibition of the silk paintings of Nguyễn Phan Chánh, a student of EBAI who had originally trained in calligraphy, who struggled with French oil techniques, and whom the school director Victor Tardieu encouraged to use traditional media.