魏晋是中国美学史研究者无法回避的一个时代。从哲学史看，玄学思潮充当了该时代的主导思想，儒释道思想在此交互发展，催生了一大批魏晋风流名士。同样，代表着该时期审美取向的艺术创作，也渐入“自律”的轨迹，无论是音乐方面的“声无哀乐”，还是绘画中的“传神写照”，都在此时得以生发。在绘画领域，人物画占据着主导。

在当时人物画何以兴盛，究其缘由大致有三：其一，“社会苦痛”导致了“清谈玄风”的盛行，开始重视人自身的价值，并导入对艺术自身价值的反思，带动士人参与绘画创作的兴致。其二，佛教思想的流播，为宗教人物画的兴盛创造了条件。其三，此一时期，盛行的“人物品藻”之风，客观上加速了人物画的创作以及对展露人物“风神”的执著。与此相关，孕育出一大批著名人物画家，形成多样化的审美风格，譬如“细密精微”“巧思传神”“遗骨取灵”等等。除诸多的画家、画作、画风之外，在画论方面，也出现了影响后世深远的顾恺之“形神”论，即要求绘画者要通过“迁想妙得”，来达至对人物内在“风神”的刻画，它为人物画在“写实”与“写真”方面，提供了理论的导引。

在绘画品鉴方面，“画赞”可谓是一种独特的现象。譬如，曹植、顾恺之等，都曾以“画赞”的方式，进行人物画的雅赏与品鉴，它们是中国美学史上不可或缺的资源，蕴含着同时代人对相关人物画创作观念的理解。然而，学界对其研究一直相对滞后，需要在历史中予以梳理，并做出相应的价值评估。

Wei and jin dynasties were an era that Chinese aestheticians could not avoid. From the perspective of the history of philosophy, the thought of metaphysics acted as the dominant thought in this era, and Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism developed interactively here, giving birth to a large number of romantic scholars in wei and jin dynasties. Similarly, artistic creation, which represented the aesthetic orientation of the period, gradually entered the track of "self-discipline". Both the "sound without sorrow" in music and the "vivid portrayal" in painting were born at this time. In the field of painting, figure painting dominates.

There are three reasons for the popularity of figure painting at that time: first, "social pain" led to the prevalence of "talking about the mysterious style", and people began to pay attention to their own value, and introduced the reflection on their own value of art, driving the interest of scholars in painting. Secondly, the spread of buddhist thought created conditions for the flourishing of religious figure painting. Thirdly, during this period, the prevailing wind of "character appreciation" objectively accelerated the creation of figure painting and the persistence of "fengshen". Related to this, a large number of famous figure painters have been born, forming a variety of aesthetic styles, such as "fine and subtle", "Think of opportunely vividly", "the remains of the spirit" and so on. In addition to many painters, paintings and painting styles, gu kaizhi's "spirit of form" theory, which had a profound influence on later generations, also appeared in painting theory, which required painters to achieve the depiction of the inner "spirit of wind" through "moving", which provided theoretical guidance for the "realistic" and "pictorial" aspects of figure painting.

In terms of painting appreciation, "painting praise" is a unique phenomenon. For example, cao zhi, gu kaizhi and others all used the method of "painting praise" to conduct elegant appreciation and appreciation of figure painting. They are indispensable resources in the history of Chinese aesthetics and contain the understanding of contemporary people on the creation concepts of figure painting. However, the academic community has been relatively lagging behind in its research, which needs to be sorted out in the history and make corresponding value assessment.