A New Form
of Beauty
How an increasing emphasis on education, poetry, and personal cultivation helped redefine a new beauty ideal during the Song dynasty.
Increasingly cultivated in the arts, women in the Song dynasty (960–1279) were able to enjoy a more colorful lifestyle than ever before. They enjoyed the fruits of a fuller, more rewarding lifestyle which came from their higher education and increased participation in the working world.
Through paintings, we witness the shift from an emphasis on pure physical beauty towards the harmonious balance of a modest, natural beauty and inner virtues. “The increasing urbanization and consumption and commerce during the Song dynasty may have had a positive impact on the life of women,” says Dr. Clarissa von Spee, Chair of Asian Art and James and Donna Reid Curator of Chinese Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art. “Talent was recognized and along with a developing print industry, education grew, including among women.”
Beauty Redefined
As the cultural sphere of the Song dynasty shifted towards the south, aesthetic ideals also changed. “One could use the modern mantra of ‘less is more’,” says von Spee.
“Frugality in a Confucian sense, simplicity, and a classic, natural look, seems to have been favored in all aspects of life and areas of culture. Increasingly, talented, gifted and virtuous women were respected and recognized, while their physical beauty played a lesser role,” she adds.
Song artists also placed refinement and inner cultivation in high regard. In the painting A Lady at Her Dressing Table in a Garden, a well-to-do woman sits at a vanity table full of makeup, yet her face is minimally decorated. She sits surrounded by plum blossoms, bonsai plants and bamboo, all of which “stand for her virtues and sophisticated taste,” as discussed by Bo Liu in ‘Physical Beauty and Inner Virtue: ‘Shinü tu’ in the Song Dynasty’.
The emphasis on high inner cultivation is also seen in Hands in Water but Eyes on Flowers which shows a noblewoman admiring her work as a servant fans her, while in Lady Watching a Maid with a Parrot, a woman’s desk is covered with books and calligraphy tools, suggesting her level of literacy.
Song women were increasingly able to express their personal style and taste through luxurious silk clothing and jewelry.
Fabric of Society
“Women had their place in society as family members who served their husband, the husband’s family, and cared for the children and female servants”, says von Spee. “But we should not underestimate the impact women had in influencing family life.”
In rural households, explains von Spee, women contributed significantly to the household’s annual tax revenue by rearing silkworms, and spinning and producing silk. The silk industry in particular hired and showcased the handiwork of women, as evident in paintings such as Sericulture (The Process of Making Silk), which depicts women managing the different stages of silk-making.
Silkworms rearing
Spooling
Weaving
Similarly, in Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk, women are depicted ironing, sewing, and pounding new silk as part of an annual imperial ceremony of silk production held during the springtime.
Rather than outward physical beauty, it was the women’s industrious attitude to life that was emphasized in such paintings—advocating for virtuous inner beauty through the expression of a hardworking and productive attitude, and of a sense of inner strength.
A Multifaceted Lifestyle
Throughout the Song dynasty, women enjoyed a wider array of social activities owing in part to the era’s increasing emphasis on education and personal cultivation.
Cultured women exchanged and enjoyed tea, as seen in Palace Ladies and Attendants. Many women were able to play instruments such as the pipa or zheng, and Song women also took part in sports, as seen in paintings such as Palace Concert Rehearsal and The Football (Cuju) Players.
“Song court ladies were expected to write poetry and know about history, and this expectation for court ladies would have been transferred in similar ways to families of officials and other parts of the society.”
Dr. Clarissa von Spee, Cleveland Museum of Art
“Trends and developments at court usually found their way into the lower levels of society. In that sense, even women of the lower classes must have seen more opportunities to develop talent and thus take part in shaping one’s life,” says von Spee.
In the finely detailed jiehua (ruled line) architectural painting Palace Banquet (Time to Pray for Ingenuity), the women are shown to be taking part in revelry in the imperial courtyard during Qi Qiao, a traditional festival during which women pray for ingenuity and handicraft skills. Harmonious union is the key theme here, and we see women threading needles and going about their business in the wider composition of palace life.
With an increased emphasis on documenting vernacular stories and the lives of the common people, Song-era paintings can tell us a lot about how the Chinese way of life drastically evolved some 1,000 years ago to become the way it is today. From the way children played to what people bought at thriving markets; daily diversions to the high arts; fashion to faith, these topics and more can be explored in detail in the art series: The Song, Painted.
The views and opinions expressed by those interviewed are solely their own.
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