The book tells about the famous works of ancient Chinese painting, explains how to look at and understand the paintings, from the time of which we are more than a thousand years old, so their perception is not an easy task.

The first part is devoted to one of the most outstanding pictorial scrolls in the history of China called "Luo River Fairy". The poem about the love of the poet Cao Zhi (lived at the turn of the 2nd-3rd centuries) for the beautiful river fairy inspired a myriad of painters. The most famous is the painting by Gu Kaizhi, created more than 1600 years ago, which has a special mysterious appeal.

In the Chinese tradition, the purpose of painting is not limited to aesthetic pleasure alone - it also conveys the events of past eras. Yan Liben's "Tai Zong Receives the Tibetan Ambassador" is a depiction of the illustrious Emperor Tai Zong and the well-known story of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries associated with him. A description of this painting and the work of Yan Liben and other artists of the Tang era (618–907) is presented in the second part of the book.

Among the surviving information about various historical eras, the descriptions of the appearance of graceful beauties of the Tang era are the most colorful. What did the women who lived at that time really look like? What clothes and jewelry did they wear? This can be learned in the third part from the description of the famous painting "Silk Making" by the unsurpassed master of depicting scenes of court life Zhang Xuan.

The painting "Night Feast of Han Xizai", recognized as one of the ten greatest works of Chinese painting, is said in the fourth part. The painting depicts a scene of a merry feast organized by Han Xizai, an official of the state of Southern Tang (X century). The author of this work, Gu Hongzhong (910–986), was considered an outstanding artist who was able to convey the psychological state and mental attitude of the characters in the smallest detail. and the rich life of Bianjing, which about 900 years ago was the largest city in China, the capital of the Northern Song Empire (960–1127). It can rightly be called a kind of encyclopedia, fully revealing to us the urban life of the Chinese society of that time. There is a detailed story about this picture in the fifth part of the book.