Before the Song dynasty, painters at court were skilled artisans whose talents were called upon to complete the decorative schemes of palaces, much the way painters helped decorate aristocratic homes and temples.
During the Northern Song, and especially during the reign of Huizong (r. 1100-1125), the standing of court painters was raised. The court painting academy became an educational institution where court painters were ranked, tested, and rewarded similar as to civil service officials.
In the great catalog of the collection of Emperor Huizong (1100-1125) - the Hsuan-ho-hua-pu whose preface is dated 1120, the paintings are divided into ten different groups, giving us both a rough indication of their importance and also a chronology for their appearance in Chinese art.
The ranking is also graded in their moral importance since the opinion has alwas been that paintings is either useful and educational, or worthless not to say subversive. In practice the group flower and bird paintings made up about half the collection while almost the remaining half was split even between Daoist and Buddhist painings and, landscapes. The groups are the following:
Courtly styles throughout the Song and Yuan period were characterized by technical finesse and close observation. Court artists spent part of their time copying old masterpieces, a practice that served the practical purposes of preserving compositions but also helped maintain high technical standards.
During the years of Mongol rule in the Yuan dynasty, court sponsorship of painting continued, but at nowhere near the levels of the previous dynasty.