This study examines part of the exchange among Korean, Chinese, and Japanese painters during the eighteenth century as seen in Gashi kaiyo (畵史會要), which was published in 1753 by Ōoka Shunboku (大 岡 春卜), a painter of the Japanese Kano school. More specifically, this study focuses on the characteristics and styles of Chinese paintings. Gashi kaiyo is a six-volume series of woodblock prints of the representative paintings of Korea, China, and Japan. Volumes 1 and 2 show the historical unfolding of Chinese paintings in a chronological order. Volumes 3-6 show the paintings of the Muromachi, Momoyama, and Edo periods of Japan by style and school. As part of his efforts to aid the reader’s understanding of Chinese classics and painting styles, Shunboku inserted narrative figure paintings and annotated portraits into Volumes 1 and 2 of Gashi kaiyo. He also included paintings of landscapes, birds-and-flowers, and the Four Gentlemen, revealing his interest in-or was it envy of-the Chinese paintings of learned scholars. If figural images were the central concern of the Kano school that emphasized the detail of description and simulation, the poetry-inspired paintings, landscapes, birds-and- flowers, and the Four Gentlemen were subjects of interest to the intellectuals of the Edo period.