Female Portrayals and Gender Politics in Court Portraits of Women from the Tang and Five Dynasties Periods

Abstract

To elucidate the intrinsic connection between images of court ladies in the Tang and Five Dynasties periods and the gender order of the time, this paper employs a multi-layered iconographic analytical framework, integrating perspectives from studies of the gaze and gender politics. Using classic paintings of court ladies and murals from imperial tombs of the Tang and Five Dynasties as case studies, the paper analyses the visual coding and implications of power in these images through the dimensions of bodily symbolism, dress codes, spatial composition, and class representation. The study reveals that the relaxed social environment of the High Tang period only marginally broadened the scope of activities available to aristocratic women. Depictions of court ladies were aesthetic products dominated by male painters; they were disciplined and objectified visual subjects, lacking the attributes of female self-expression. Following the decline of imperial authority after the An Lushan Rebellion, the rise of regional warlords, the frequent wars of the Five Dynasties period, and the tightening of the social and ritual system, the style of court lady imagery shifted from the expansive and outward-looking character of the High Tang to the delicate, restrained, melancholic and introverted forms of the Late Tang and Five Dynasties periods. This iterative evolution in pictorial style precisely corresponds to the process of reconstructing the gender order amidst fluctuations in dynastic power. Research confirms that portraits of court ladies during the Tang and Five Dynasties periods consistently served a triple system of discipline comprising imperial authority and ritual norms, court hierarchy, and male aesthetics; they did not embody visual expressions of women’s liberation. At the same time, this study provides a standardised analytical framework for interdisciplinary visual criticism of ancient figure painting.