A General History of Chinese Art comprises six volumes with a total of nine parts spanning from the Prehistoric Era until the 3^rd year of Xuantong during the Qing Dynasty (1911). The work provides a comprehensive compilation of in-depth studies of the development of art throughout the subsequent reign of Chinese dynasties and explores the emergence of a wide range of artistic categories such as but not limited to music, dance, acrobatics, singing, story telling, painting, calligraphy, sculpture, architecture, and crafts.
Unlike previous reference books, A General History of Chinese Art offers a broader overview of the notion of Chinese art by asserting a more diverse and less material understanding of arts, as has often been the case in Western scholarship.