Elegant Demeanor of ladies
3 min readApart from political figure paintings and religious figure paintings, the high maturity of Tang figure paintings is also manifested by lady paintings. Zhang Xuan and zhou Fang(713-741) were representative painters. In a certain sense, their works mark a change in figure painting and thus occupy special places in the painting history. The development trend of painting in a certain period is rooted in the social life and predominant culture of that period After nearly one hundred years of development, the Tang Dynasty realized political stability and economic prosperity, so court officials and aristocrats increasingly indulged in pleasure and comfort, and political works such as the paintings created by Yan liben for reference”were no onger that important Social and realistic elements in painting kept increasing, making secular painting independent. Zhang Xuan and Zhou Fang created lady paintings under this background
Zhang Xuan’s representative works are Lady Guoguo on a Spring Outing and Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk. Lady Guoguo on a Spring Outing depicts the scene of a tour of Imperial Concubine Yang’s sisters Lady guoguo and lady qinguo The paintings layout is well-proportioned, the colors are gorgeous, and the lines andsmooth and natural. There are eight horses and nine people in the painting, including a girl in one person’s arms Each of them is gorgeously dressed and graceful. While drawing this picture, the painter paid equal attention to the form”and “spirit, fully manifesting the pleasant mood of court ladies on an outing in the sunny season of late spring and setting off the scene of spring with these people’s leisurely mood and the horses fast steps. Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk depicts the scene of women s labor, including silk beating, linking and sewing. One scene in the painting is especially vivid: two women pull both ends of white silk, and a girl naughtily looks up under the white silk. Each of them is gorgeously dressed, and the colors of their dresses are all different and can be called fashionable dresses if viewed from today’s perspective. This shows that the textile industry was highly developed then Zhou Fang’s representative works are palace ladies with silk Fans and Palace Ladies Wearing Flowered Headdresses. Palace Ladies with Silk Fans depicts the daily life of aristocratic women, including the scenes of enjoying the cool, observing silk sewing and putting on makeup. The figures in the painting are plump and gorgeously dressed but most of them look worried and bored. Through such contradictory depiction, the painter showed aristocratic women’s sad and sorrowful inner world, and conveyed a kind of compassion for them. Palace Ladies Wearing Flowered Headdresses based oncourt women’s life depicts the scenes of admiring flowers, playing with dogs andwatching cranes. The gorgeously dressed imperial concubines in the painting walkleisurely in a courtyard. The background is very simple. The painting s artisticconceptions and emotional appeal are manifested through depiction of the figures shapes and expressions. The method of combining contrastive dyeing, over dyeing and separate dyeing and replacing lines with colors adopted for this painting represented a new trend of Tang elaborate-style painting
The figure has a slim body in sharp contrast to Tang paintings of plump and gorgeous ladies The figure paintings by Zhang Xuan and Zhou Fang changed the tradition of taking women willing to die to defend chastity，filial sons，meritorious officials excellent generals and buddhist figures as the main themes since the han and wei dynasties，and took real life into perspective for figure paintings expression.tang lady painting not only influenced Chinese lady painting of later ages，but also spread eastwards to Japan.Japanese belle painting originated from China’s Tang lady painting，and developed under the influence of Chinese traditional painting’s artistic styles.Japan’s national styles and characteristics were really formed only after the rise of Ukiyo-e belle painting in the Edo Period.In comparison，Chinese lady paintings artistic images are characterized by quietness and elegance，while Japanese Ukiyo-e belle painting is more rich-colored
