Korean painting (Korean: 한국화) includes paintings made in Korea or by overseas Koreans on all surfaces. The earliest surviving Korean paintings are murals in the Goguryeo tombs, of which considerable numbers survive, the oldest from some 2,000 years ago (mostly now in North Korea), with varied scenes including dancers, hunting and spirits. It has been hypothesized the Takamatsuzuka Tomb in Japan, from the 7th-century end of the Goguryeo period, has paintings with Goguryeo influence, either done by Goguryeo artists, or Japanese one trained by Goguryeo people.

Painting in the Goryeo period (918–1392) was dominated by Buddhist scroll paintings, adapting Chinese styles; about 160 survive from the period. In this period the royal artist's school or academy, the Dohwaseo was established, with examinations for artists and run by bureaucrats of the court. Around the start of the Joseon period (1392–1897), the largely monochrome ink-wash painting tradition already long-established in China was introduced, and has remained an important strand in Korean and Japanese painting, with the local version of the shan shui style of mountain landscape painting as important as in China.

Thereafter Korean painting including different traditions, of monochromatic works of black brushwork, sometimes by amateurs, professional works with colour, including many genre scenes, and animal and bird-and-flower painting, and colourful folk art called minhwa, as well as a continuing tradition of Buddhist devotional scrolls called taenghwa, ritual arts, tomb paintings, and festival arts which had extensive use of colour. This distinction was often class-based: scholars, particularly in Confucian art felt that one could see colour in monochromatic paintings within the gradations and felt that the actual use of colour coarsened the paintings, and restricted the imagination. Korean folk art, and painting of architectural frames was seen as brightening certain outside wood frames, and again within the tradition of Chinese architecture, and the early Buddhist influences of profuse rich halos and primary colours inspired by Indian art.

Korean painters in the post-1945 period have assimilated some of the approaches of the west. Certain European artists with thick impasto technique and foregrounded brushstrokes captured the Korean interest first. Such artists as Gauguin, Monticelli, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Pissarro, and Braque have been highly influential as they have been the most taught in art schools, with books both readily available and translated into Korean early. And from these have been drawn the tonal palettes of modern Korean artists: yellow ochre, cadmium yellow, Naples yellow, red earth, and sienna. All thickly painted, roughly stroked, and often showing heavily textured canvases or thick pebbled handmade papers.

The expected genres of Buddhist art showing the Buddha, or Buddhist monks, and Confucian art of scholars in repose, or studying in quiet often mountainous surroundings follows general East Asian art trends. Nimbus colours are not necessarily gold, and may be suggested by lighter colours. Faces tend to realism and show humanity and age. Drapery is done with some to great care. The face is generally two-dimensional, the drapery three-dimensional. As in medieval and renaissance western art, drapery and faces are done often by two or three artists who specialize in one particular painterly skill. Iconography follows Buddhist iconography.

Scholars tend to have the traditional stove-pipe hats, or other rank hats, and scholar's monochromatic robes. Typically they are at rest in teahouses near mountains or at mountain lodges, or will be pictured with their teachers or mentors.

Hunting scenes, familiar throughout the entire world, are often seen in Korean courtly art, and are reminiscent of Mongolian and Persian hunting scenes. Wild boar, deer, and stags, and Siberian tigers as well were hunted. Particularly lethal spears and spear-handled maces were used by horsemen within hunting grounds after archers on the ground led the initial provocation of the animals as beaters. Buddhas tend to have Korean facial features, and are in easy resting positions.

Buddhist temples and hermitages across the country are rich archives of folk paintings, ranging from large icon images for ritual use to illustrations for sutras and anecdotes about famous monks and their portraits. These temple painting are noted for simple compositions and bright colors.