Let's first talk about the ruqun, which is made up of the top jacket and long gown and a skirt on the bottom. The Tang women inherited this traditional style and developed it further, opening up the collar as far as exposing the cleavage between the breasts. This was unheard of and unimaginable in the previous dynasties, in which women had to cover their entire body according to the Confucian classics. But the new style was soon embraced by the open-minded aristocratic women of the Tang Dynasty.Zhang Xuan, a woman painter of the Tang Dynasty, and Zhou Fang, another famous painter, were particularly good at portraying opulent women in elaborate dresses. Zhou Fang, in his painting Lady with the Flower in the Hair, portrayed a beauty with a Kong gown lightly covering the breasts, revealing soft and supple shoulders under a silk cape.
The Tang aesthetics was that of suppleness and opulence, like peonies in flowers, men and women with short necks and shoulders, and horses with small head, thick neck and a large backside. In Tang paintings, women tried to show their suppleness by pleating their skirts in accordion form, and raised the waist all the way up to under the armpits, so that the waistline was barrel shaped to show a full and round body contour.
