壁画
bì huà · HSK 7
mural
🖼️🧱 壁 wall + 画 painting = a painting ON a wall, a mural
The compound is literal: 壁 (bì) means wall or cliff face, 画 (huà) means painting or drawing. Together they describe artwork applied directly to a wall surface — exactly what mural and fresco mean.
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.