河北曲阳石雕已经有两千多年的发展历史，是中国雕刻艺术中重要的一个分支，也是中国北方石雕艺术的发祥地之一。
传统的曲阳石雕技艺的起源应当追溯到汉代。据庙宇碑文记载，早在西汉年间，张良之师黄石公便在此地修行，召集石匠修建殿宇，雕刻兽类饰物。曲阳城内的北岳庙，始建于北魏。大殿周围遍布雕有千姿百态石狮的汉白玉栏杆。故宫博物院历代艺术馆也收藏了曲阳出土的大量北魏至唐代的石雕造像，其形态优美，精雕细琢，堪称北魏期间佛教造像艺术之佳作。曲阳石雕经唐代而日趋成熟，至元代又有一个质的飞跃，将建筑雕刻、建筑装饰与石雕巧妙的结合。明清则将这种建筑装饰艺术发展到了高峰。
曲阳石雕艺术的成因，大致有三：一是由于曲阳石料本身适于雕刻，曲阳石雕有着得天独厚的便利条件，城南黄山盛产汉白玉大理石，石质洁白纯净、润滑坚韧，白石中稍带微黄之色如象牙一般。这些优良的石料经过艺人的精雕细琢，易出精品；二是曲阳地处燕赵之间，与代表中国古代雕塑辉煌成果的四大石窟之一的大同云冈石窟相距甚近，在艺术手法及风格上曾经受到很大的影响；三是北魏拓拔氏当年大兴开凿石窟之风，在全国范围内网罗和掠夺了大批工匠，来建造大量的寺庙石刻，其中就包括当时的中山（今定州曲阳）艺人，这些人带回了优良的雕刻技艺，促进了当地石雕艺术的发展。
在近两千年的发展过程中，曲阳石雕逐渐形成了自己非同凡响的特有风格。
首先是重神韵。曲阳石雕在造型中不唯形似，往往去掉繁琐细节，紧紧抓住人物的精神气质作为刻画表现的主旨，雕琢手法上极为简约，以求造型在动态结构上达到传神的要求。特别是在塑造佛像这类性别不清的形象时，强调人物内心世界的刻画，讲究人物、动物及各种形象之间的呼应。毕竟，“传神”是中国传统艺术中不可动摇的精神所在。
其二是适型。与其说曲阳石雕作品千姿百态、形象各异、丰富的构图是艺人的巧妙设计，不如说是曲阳石料的天然形态提供了造型的基本条件。可以说“应物造型”是曲阳石雕的一个基本特点。曲阳石雕艺人在创作时，常常根据石料的形态特点展开丰富的联想，发挥自己的形象思维能力，寻找自己所要表现的突破口，达到胸有成竹后，一气呵成。
其三是发挥线在雕刻中的作用。以线造型，是中国传统艺术中极为发达和最富有民族特征的艺术表现形式，在数千年艺术发展的历程里，逐渐成为中华民族文化与心理结构的最佳表现形式。曲阳石雕充分表现出线条的概括作用，运用不同的线条表现不同的质感，在因线条作用而造成的不拘泥于形体外表的空灵的空间感中，有着一种与西方体面雕塑的实在空间感大相异趣的美感。
其四是塑造手法的随意性。在曲阳石雕艺术造型中，圆雕、浮雕、透雕、线刻等表现方法常常被不拘一格地混合并用于一件作品，甚至有时还有镶嵌技法。曲阳石雕不仅圆融贯通地综合运用多种技法，而且还体现出构思巧妙、设计选材的灵活。这正合乎东方艺术审美形态的要求，因为其传统艺术的理念中一直体现着浪漫主义的思维色彩，从来就不受理性界限的束缚，这也就是曲阳石雕艺术具备更大的空间容量的原因所在。
其五是创作题材的宽广与内容的丰富性。在曲阳，每个石雕艺人都有讲不完的神话故事、寓言传说，这些丰富的素材充实了石雕艺术的表现内容，因为每个美丽的故事传说都是启发他们进行创作的源泉。这种人神合一、佛道合一、天人合一的中国民族传统文化特点，这种天、地、人、神、兽之间的融合体现，形成并丰富了曲阳石雕的题材与内容。可以说，随着艺术表现题材的拓宽，逐渐体现出曲阳石雕艺术发展上的成熟与进步。
曲阳石雕艺术走过了两千多年的路程，随着中国雕塑历史的长河不断涌进而逐渐发展。尽管曲阳石雕一段时间里曾经因为各种的原因出现低迷的状况，但是其历史渊源并没被割断，其艺术上的、文化上的生命力依然顽强。在此意义上，我们希望文化艺术界和社会上更多的有识之士能关注曲阳，关注曲阳石雕艺术的进一步发展，以使这枝富有中华民族传统文化特色的奇葩焕发新的春天。
The Quyang Stone Carving has a long history of 2,000 years. Being an important branch of Chinese stone carving, The Quyang Stone Carving is one of the origins of northern stone carving art in China.
The traditional technique of the Quyang Stone Carving dates back to Han Dynasty. After the gradual maturity in Tang Dynasty, it developed into a leap in Yuan Dynasty, ingeniously combining architectural carving, architectural decoration and stone carving. In Ming and Qing Dynasty, its development reached the top.
The Quyang Stone Carving came into being for three causes. In the first place, Quyang has a favorable natural condition: the stone materials in Quyang are suitable for stone carving. The Huang Mountain in the south of Quyang abounds in white marbles. The marbles there are of good quality with pure color, glossy surface and fine tenacity. And rather than completely white, the marbles are milk white like ivory. Due to those good qualities, the stones in Quyang are easy to be carved into fine works by craftsmen. Secondly, located between Yan (Beijing) and Zhao (the central part of Shanxi Province and Hebei), Quyang is near to the Yungang Grottoes at Datong in Shanxi Province. As the Yungang Grottoes are one of the four famous grottoes in China, 
representing the splendid ancient Chinese carving art, the Quyang Stone Carving is greatly influenced in style and technique by Yungang grottoes. Thirdly, in the Northern Wei Dynasty, the authorities went in for large-scale grottoes construction. In order to the fulfill plenty of caving tasks in temple construction, they recruited and gathered a large quantity of craftsmen including those from Quyang. These craftsmen brought excellent carving techniques to Quyang and promoted the development of stone carving art in Quyang.
During the course of its 2000-year development, the Quyang Stone Carving has formed its outstanding unique style. Firstly, it attaches great importance to spiritual resemblance. The Quyang Stone Carving aims at not only in appearance, but also in spirit. In the stone carving, some trivial details are usually cut off and the attention is focused on the reflection of the characters" spirit and personalities. Besides, the means of carving need to be simple in order to meet the demands of spiritual resemblance in the dynamic structure of the shapes concerned. The second characteristics of the Quyang Stone Carving is its suitability of modeling to materials. The Quyang Stone Carving works are of variety and diversity more owing to the modeling foundation of the natural quality of stone materials in Quyang than because of the craftsmen"s clever designs. Thus, it can be said that modeling according to materials is one of the fundamental features of the Quyang Stone Carving. The third characteristics of the Quyang Stone Carving is that the role of lines is given to full play in the carving. Modeling with lines is the most developed national means of artistic expression in Chinese traditional arts. And in the thousands of years of the development, modeling with lines has gradually become the best means of artistic expression of the Chinese national culture and psychological structure. The Quyang Stone Carving fully reflects the outlining function of lines. Different lines are used to reveal different qualities. Going beyond of the appearance, the three-dimensional effect is resulted from the use of lines, but has quite different beauty from the real space effect of western sculpture. The fourth characteristics of the Quyang Stone Carving is the free use of different techniques. In Quyang Stone Carving, the skills of circular carving, relief, perspective carving, line engraving, and even mosaic may be freely combined to create one works. The fifth characteristics of the Quyang Stone Carving is its broad range of subjects and richness of contents. The unification of man and god, Buddhism and Daoism, Heaven and man is the feature of the Chinese traditional culture. Therefore, the unification of heaven, earth, man, god and animals forms and eiches the subjects and contents of the Quyang Stone Caving. It is true that the broadening of the range of subjects reflects the maturing and progress of the development of the Quyang Stone Carving art.