During the Tang Dynasty in China, a highly popular genre of painting was “beautiful women painting”. A representative artwork of such genre is Court Ladies Wearing Flowered Headdresses by Zhou Fang, who popularised depicting the daily life of court ladies. Zhou Fang's painting portrays ladies who are believed to partake in “Birthday of the Flowers” (or “Flower Morning”), a popular festival that is set in the second lunar month. During this festival, ladies traditionally adorned their hair with silk or paper artificial flowers, and together they held outdoor celebrations of the springtime.
In this detail of the painting, two ladies can be seen standing next to a blooming magnolia tree, with the left lady gently holding a caught butterfly in her hands. Other scenes include the ladies playing with a puppy, or admiring some flowers. These scenes represent the amusements and leisure that aristocratic women enjoy during their free time.
The ladies in the painting embody the epitome of Tang Dynasty female beauty standards – a voluptuous body, cherry-like lips, slender eyes, and pale skin through the application of white pigment. The hair of the ladies is gathered in a high bun and adorned with jewels, and they are elegantly dressed, wearing loose-fitting long gowns while being draped in transparent gauzes. Meticulously drawn with layers of colours and a high amount of intricate elements, Zhou Fang’s painting provides a detailed depiction of what was fashionable at that time.
The painting Court Ladies Wearing Flowered Headdresses not only offers a glimpse into the life of Tang Dynasty ladies, but also the beauty standards at the time.
What speaks volumes about the culture of the contemporary society is the fact that the composition utilizes a traditional Chinese artistic convention known as hierarchical scale (or social perspective). The maidservant holding the long-handled fan is standing in the foreground, yet she is physically rendered much smaller than the surrounding noblewomen. Her size does not denote physical distance, but rather her lower social rank relative to the elite status of the court concubines. Furthermore, the makeup worn by the ladies features a highly specific historical style where their natural eyebrows were shaved and replaced with short, thick painted marks known as "sleeping silkworms". Interestingly, their facial structures, lips, and expressions are rendered so identically that many art historians believe Zhou Fang did not paint five distinct individuals, but instead used a single idealized court lady as the archetype for every figure in the scroll.
