国画
guóhuà · HSK 7
painting
🖼️🎨 国 = country + 画 = painting: the national painting style (ink-brush landscapes)
国 (guó) means country/nation and 画 (huà) means painting or to paint. Together they name China's traditional ink-and-brush art, as opposed to Western-style painting (西画, xīhuà).
国 — enclosure 囗 + jade 玉
国 is a simplified form of 國. The outer 囗 represents borders or an enclosed territory, while the inner 玉 (jade) suggests a treasured realm ruled by a sovereign. The traditional 國 used 或 inside, depicting a guarded region with a weapon, later simplified by replacing it with 玉.
画 — hand 一 + field 田 + frame 凵
Originally a pictograph of a hand holding a brush drawing boundaries around a field, depicting the act of marking out land. The top once showed a brush (聿), and 田 represents the field being divided. Over time it came to mean 'to draw, paint' and also 'a stroke' in characters.