Li Puyuan's "Introduction to Chinese Art History" is China's first work on art history with historical materialism as the theoretical framework. The study found that it actually accepted Plekhanov's dialectical interpretation of historical materialism, especially Plekhanov's "five-factor formula" theory of social structure. In the historical stage, he put forward the concept of "mixed society" according to the evolution of social production mode; in terms of writing style, he incorporated multi-dimensional factors such as productivity, economic foundation, political system, social psychology and ideology into the analytical framework to form a progressive discourse structure. In terms of research methods, he achieved a methodological breakthrough from 'economic foundation' to social psychology, and deduced the artistic form with social psychology as the intermediary when archaeological evidence was missing. Therefore, he pioneered the combination of historical materialism and Chinese art history, and provided an important methodological reference for the study of art history in later generations.