The bapo is a form of painting that looks like a trompe l’oeil, practiced in China from the mid-19th century to the advent of communism in 1949 and which is revived today by the brush of a few artists. Comparable to a certain extent to the European quodlibets of the 17th and 18th centuries, it is a kind of pictorial, literary, and calligraphic compilation. However, a bapois less aimed at deceiving visually than at arousing curiosity by operating like a rebus. It is based on an ambiguity: while presenting illusionist forms, it reminds us at the same time that the described objects are not real by cutting them by the edge and by affixing inscriptions and seals which cancel the effect of the trompe l’oeil. The background is definitely conceived as a screen, the one formed by the sheet of paper.