In traditional Chinese painting, what genre focuses on flowers, birds, insects, and animals?

In traditional Chinese painting, the genre focusing on flowers, birds, insects, and animals is bird-and-flower painting.

Known in Chinese as huaniaohua, meaning “flower-and-bird painting,” it is one of the principal subject categories of Chinese painting. Artists may depict birds and plants realistically, but the images often also express symbolic meanings, seasonal associations, or moral qualities.

The genre developed especially strongly during the Tang and Song dynasties. Song painters are renowned for close observation of plants and animals, while later literati artists often used freer brushwork and expressive ink washes. Plum blossom, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum became especially important subjects because of their links with character and scholarly ideals.

Bird-and-flower painting is sometimes confused with botanical or zoological illustration. Its purpose is broader: composition, brush energy, symbolism, and the relationship between living forms are as important as visual accuracy. It is one of the standard categories alongside landscape and figure painting.