Chester Beatty Library - Telling Images of China

Paintings depicting affairs of the heart at court and ‘scholar and beauty’ romances are grouped here under one title. This is a rough assortment, however, for a startling diversity of purpose underlies the making of these stories and artworks.

Some early romantic ballads in the Chinese poetic traditions were composed out of love, but also to express political dissent, since the image of love between man and woman did duty for other relationships like between ruler and minister. Often there was a moral purpose to the way stories were illustrated in later paintings, which reflected a tradition of commentary on such tales. Tales about ambitious court women in antiquity, for example, were evergreen as expressions of dismay about poor kingship, but were also coded means of admonishing wayward emperors. Paintings of the late Qing dynasty (1644-1911) began to focus on women’s education and rights in opposition to the restrictions on women in feudal society.