Court Ladies Adorning Their Hair with Flowers
3 min readPainter:Zhou Fang
Painting Year:the Tang Dynasty
Material:silk scroll
Dimension:vertical length of 46 centimeters and horizontal length of 180 centimeters Collection Place：Liaoning Museum
Court ladies Adorning Their Hair with Flowers depicts the leisure and comfortable lives of noble ladies inthe court of the Tang Dynasty.The picture is divided into four parts from right to left:playing with dogs，having a walk，adorning hair with flowers and watching flowers.The whole picture displays a graceful and leisure circumstance.The colors of the picture are bright and rich while its lines are steady，thin and powerful.The decorations of the clothes are fne and delicate but not trivial.The fgures in the pictures vary from each other in distance and size.They echo and correspond with each other.Because of the long age，the silk scroll has already become quite old.Thus the white powder applied on the faces，busts and hands of fgures are more striking.The picture had delicate depiction of the special sense of reality of the yarn and fesh，showing the taste of nobles at that time.The trees，red-crowned cranes and dogs，which serve as the foils，also refect the levels of the paintings of birds and fowers in the Tang Dynasty.
The original copy of this artwork has been lost but this facsimile can also refect the style of Zhou Fang s paintings of beauties.
Brief Background
Silk Scroll
The tough silk is a kind of silk fabric.The Chinese painting drawn on the tough silk is called”silk scrol1.”The tough silk can be divided into raw silk and ripe silk.The water cannot go through the ripe silk but can penetrate the raw silk.Therefore the ripe silk is used to draw elaborate-style paintings while the raw silk is used for freehand brushwork.
Art Master
Zhou Fang
He was a painter in the Tang Dynasty，and his birth date and death date remain unknown.He came from Jingzhao（today’s Xi’an，Shaanxi）and was good at painting portraits of nobles and religious frescos.He had outstanding achievements in painting beauties.Zhou Fang’s paintings of beauties succeeded and developed the style of Zhang Xuan and had great infuence over the later generations.
A magnolia was blossoming in front of the rockworks. With an elegant and carefree espression, the court lady caught a butterfly fron the flower and turned her head to watch the dog and the red-crowned crane.
Showcase Window
The Painting of Beauties
It is the painting of noble ladies and their lives in ancient China. It is also called”Painting of Court Ladies.”
The court lady holding a horsetail whisk stood sideways to play with the dog. Her posture was graceful and easy. The walking court lady on the left also called the dog. The two ladies corresponded with each other. They wore lusury and beautiful yarn clothes and had fowers adore their high buns. They had high-raised brows and calm expressions. They also have plump bodies and thus look graceful and gorgeous.
Anecdote
Zhou Fang Changed the Painting
In Zhenyuan Period of the Tang Dynasty(785-805), Emperor Dezong ordered Zhou Fang to draw a fresco of deities’ portraits for the renewed Zhangjing Temple. When he began to draw the fresco, tens of thousands ofpeople in the capital came to watch. They discussed about the fresco. Some of them praised the fresco whilesome of then criticized it. The monks in the temple who saw this scene worried that this might affect Zhou Fangs mood of drawing and wanted to stop the audience. However, Zhou Fang said: It s all right. Let then say what they want to say.
Zhou Fang modestly listened to the audience s discussion and took all the right advices. He ceaselessly changed the design of the deities portraits. After more than one month, no one could propose any opinions for Zhou Fangs work and every people applauded the excellence of the fresco.
This court lady picked up a fower with her right hand and was ready to put the fower into the most suitable part of her bun.She was preoccupied by watching and playing with the fower and seemed to forget everything around her.
