~画

~が · ~ga · JLPT N2 · noun

painting

🖼️🎨 ga as in gallery: 日本画 nihonga = Japan + painting

As a suffix, ~画 marks a style or genre of painting: 日本画 nihonga is Japanese-style painting, 洋画 yōga is Western-style painting. The kanji once showed a brush marking out the borders of a field.

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.

~かく · ~kaku · JLPT N1 · noun

stroke

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.

More Japanese words · How Japanese works