画 (huà) · to draw; to paint

Meanings

1 to draw; to paint
2 picture; painting

Characters

画

huà

to draw; painting

Examples

HSK 1

你会画画吗？

Nǐ huì huàhuà ma?

Can you draw?

HSK 3

他在纸上画了一只猫。

Tā zài zhǐ shàng huà le yì zhī māo.

He drew a cat on the paper.

HSK 4

这幅画很漂亮。

Zhè fú huà hěn piàoliang.

This painting is very beautiful.

Tips

usage

画 works as both a verb (to draw/paint) and a noun (a painting/picture). As a verb: 画画 (to draw). As a noun with a measure word: 一幅画 (a painting).

culture

Chinese painting (国画) is one of the oldest continuous art traditions in the world, using ink and brush on silk or paper. The "Four Treasures of the Study" (文房四宝) - brush, ink, paper, and inkstone - are the essential tools.

Components

radical

田 tián

field

Field at the center - also 画's indexing radical. Bordered fields were the original subject the brush traced; in the modern simplified character only the field survives from the traditional 畫, which once showed a hand 聿 holding a brush above the field. Same radical in 男, 界, 留.

ideograph

一 yī

one (top stroke)

Single horizontal across the top - the upper boundary line of the painted area. In the traditional 畫 this was part of the brush-hand; in the simplified 画 it is reduced to one bare horizontal closing the frame above.

semantic

凵 qiǎn

open box (bottom-side frame)

U-shaped frame sealing the field from below and the right - an open container for the field above. Together with the top 一 it brackets 田 within a bounded picture-edge, the last living trace of the original 'mark out the borders of a painting' meaning.