The first animation that was made in China came out in 1926. This animation was modeled after an animation that was made outside of China. The world’s first animation made in Chinese ink painting style called Tadpoles Looking for Their Mother, was successfully produced in July of 1960. Prior to the debut of the animation, the Shanghai Animation Film Studio made several experimentations films of ink wash animation. In the beginning of these experimentations were words from the studio, and it goes something like this: Chinese ink painting is one of the traditional fine arts of China, it is loved by the people of China and well known to the people of the world. For a long time, we longed for making Chinese ink painting animation. This time, we were finally able to overcome the obstacle in technicality and succeeded in production, at the same time, we opened up a broad horizon for the Chinese ink painting on screen.

When the Shanghai Animation Film Studio brought Chinese ink painting on to screen, they also utilized the cultural art in to animation, making the animation special and have more meaning. It also means there are more possibilities in animation, and showed other countries that there is a possibility they can put their cultural art on to screen as well. Chinese ink painting animation utilized the styles of Chinese ink painting in animation, making Chinese ink painting animation its own category. From traditional hand drawn animation to computer made animation, Chinese ink painting animation nowadays rarely uses the traditional ink brush, ink and rice paper that Chinese ink painting uses. This way, Chinese ink painting animation is only bringing life to the characteristics of ink painting, therefore, it is only right to call Chinese ink painting animation motion ink wash. Since this is derived from the traditional Chinese ink painting, Chinese ink painting animation should inherit the characteristics of Chinese ink painting. Nonetheless, Chinese ink painting animation has motion, traditional Chinese ink painting does not, there might be some characteristics lost during this translation, but at the same time, it is possible that Chinese ink painting animation gained something that is not in Chinese ink painting, or vice versa.