The ceramic paintings in the Ming and Qing dynasties formed their own unique features. Whether in the selection of themes, artistic styles or artistic forms, they all showed strong characteristics and trends of urban folk culture. The formation of this trend is closely related to the aesthetic tastes of the society and the values of literary works at that time. Combining with the social background of the Ming and Qing dynasties, this paper takes the themes of novels in the Ming and Qing dynasties as the entry point of the research, and analyzes the manifestation forms of novel themes in ceramic paintings. It is found that the handling of the expressions, costumes and movements of the characters in ceramic paintings, as well as the popular and intuitive narrative plots and the expression of glaze colors, all prove the characteristics of urban folk culture contained in the ceramic paintings of the Ming and Qing dynasties.