Guochao huashi 國朝畫識

Guochao huashi 國朝畫識 "Introduction into contemporary painting" is a book on painting written during the high Qing period 清 (1644-1911) by Feng Jinbo 馮金伯 (1738-1810), courtesy name Yetang 冶堂, style Moxiang 墨香, Nancen 南岑 or Huayang Waishi 華陽外史, from Nanhui 南滙, Jiangsu. He was a tribute student (gongsheng 貢生) and worked, after graduation, as assistant instructor (xundao 訓導) in Gourong 句容. Later on, he became director of the Puyang Academy (Puyang Shuyuan 蒲陽書院, see academies). He also wrote the book Moxiangju huashi 墨香居畫識, a biographical collection.

The book of 17 juan length was finished in 1791. It discusses the artworks of 1165 painters from the Qing period, and can thus be used as a supplement to Zhang Geng's 張庚 (1685-1760) Guochao huazheng lu 國朝畫征錄. The information for Feng's critique is mainly derived from other sources, all of which he minutely indicated. The book quotes form more than 200 poems and prose collections of individual persons, 90 biographical works, 40 "brush-notes"-style (biji 筆記) essays, and more than 20 books specialized on the history of painting, many of which are lost today. Apart from critique of individual painters, Feng Jinbo added 76 brief chapters on theoretical aspects of painting and such correcting errors in older texts. One important shortcoming of the book is that painters are not arranged chronologically, even if certain social groups are assembled in specific chapters, like Buddhist monks (ch. 14), Daoist monks (ch. 15), ladies (ch. 16) and other females (ch. 17).

The book is included in the series Meishu congshu 美術叢書.