The provision of a paint composition that affords a paint film of excellent acid rain resistance, contamination resistance, water resistance, weather resistance and painting workability, with particularly excellent resistance to vehicle wash damage; and a painting and finishing method, and painted articles. [Overcoming means] A paint composition, characterized in that it has as indispensable components (A) a hydroxyl group-containing resin that is obtained by the addition and polymerization of (a) a compound that contains one carboxyl group and does not have a radical polymerizable double bond, (b) a lactone compound, and (c) an epoxy group-containing radical polymerizable monomer, and, if necessary, (d) another radical polymerizable monomer, and which has a resin hydroxyl value of from 180 to 400 mgKOH/g and a weight average molecular weight of from 2000 to 30,000, and in which the structural unit based on the lactone compound component (b) is from 20 to 60% by mass of the resin solids content; and (B) a crosslinking agent containing per molecule at least one functional group that reacts with hydroxyl groups.