Western painting includes oiling painting, block, copperplate, watercolor, and poster color, etc, among which oiling painting is the most expressive, practical and decorative painting. For the subject, oiling painting can be mainly divided into theme painting, genre painting, landscape painting, portrait and still life. But whatever the subject is, works mainly rely on shape and color these two main elements. In other words, the ways of expression of paintings are shape, light and color.

Shape, or we can say, form and structure. This requires that the artist must have the ability to shape first, and he must have a strong foundation sketch. If the artist is not good at charcoal drawing, it would be difficult for him to draw a good oil painting. Light is the effect of light. After the rise of French Impressionism, people triggered the research and manifestation for light, and painter tended to have a scientific and rational understanding of it.

The most important element in the painting is the color, which is different from the color in color palette. Painters never put the colors on the palette that the factory produced to canvas without mixing. These colors need to be mixed
the pass line. In addition to the above requirements, the appreciation of oil paintings should also focus on composition, strokes, rhythm, etc.