A small painted pottery jar Majiayao culture, Shilingxia to Majiayao phase, c. 3800-2700 B.C. 馬家窰文化石嶺下至馬家窰類型 彩陶瓶

Ronald W. Longsdorf, The Pottery Age: An Appreciation of Neolithic Ceramics from China, Circa 7000 BC - Circa 1000 BC, Hong Kong, 2020, pl. 8.

Ronald W. Longsdorf, 《陶誌：中國新石器時代陶器 約公元前7000年 – 前1000年》，香港，2020年，圖版8

Spontaneously painted with bold black strokes against a burnished tan-orange body, the decoration on the present jar is a perfect example of earliest abstract art.

There is documented evidence that agriculture and domestication of animals began in the region of China as early as the 7th millennium B.C. The decorative repertoire of a circled dot on the present jar was also found on wares from the Yangshao Banpo culture, and was normally perceived as a reference to the nostrils of a pig. This simplified zoomorphic symbolism contracts attractively with the swirling lines around, the finger-painted border around the neck further accentuated the jar's abstract representation of the routine in primitive society.

Compare a painted pottery jar dated to the late Yangshao culture, recorded in Cultural Relics Bureau of Gansu (ed.), Gems of Cultural Relics of Gansu, Beijing, 2006, no. 11.

此瓶瓶身打磨光滑，陶質呈橙褐色，紋飾黑彩筆道粗獷，揮灑自如，實屬高古抽象藝術佳例。

根據文獻記載，中國於公元前 7 世紀已開始農耕畜牧。此瓶飾一圓圈，圈内有一點，亦見於仰韶半坡文化，造型抽象，多數認爲乃豬鼻，與圈外渦紋對比分明，瓶頸紋飾相信乃陶匠以手指直接施加，與瓶身抽象紋飾相輔相成。

參考一仰韶文化末期作例，錄於甘肅省文物局編，《甘肅文物菁華》，北京，2006年，編號11。