Culture insider: Pretty women in Chinese paintings

Song Dynasty (960-1279)

With a relatively stable political power, developed economy and prosperous culture, Chinese artists in the Song Dynasty continued to make innovations in their portrayals of women. In addition to mythical female figures and courtesans, the women at the bottom of society began to catch artists' attention.

Take Wang Juzheng's "The Spinning Wheel" for example. Women in this picture do not have sweet and pretty facial expressions, attractive statures, magnificent clothing or honored status. They are real, ordinary, rural women.

Artists did not use artistic techniques to make them look better, but praised their unadorned individuality and virtuous lifestyle while simultaneously expressing sympathy for their poverty.

"The Spinning Wheel" by Wang Juzheng (part).

 

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