High Tang Period Consort/ Lady- 盛唐贵妇

March 09, 2025

High Tang Period Consort/ Lady- 盛唐贵妇 | 盛唐王妃

Full figured High Tang period lady dressed in intricately tie-dyed (zhá rǎn/扎染) robes. Popular motifs included repeating floral medallion prints called tuán huā 团花 "flower block/ flower medalion". During the Tang the vibrant and highly resistant tie-dyed dresses were sign of status because they were very labor intensive and costly to make.

Studio: 真修言

Studio: 艾慕造型

Hanfu, Makeup & Hairstyle: 晓琳-装束复原

Music: Prayer of Thousand Years

Full figured, Rubenesque, with soft luscious lines, the women of high Tang period 盛唐, pegged to the reign of the Xuanzong Emperor Li Longji (712- 756) represented a distinctive phase of aesthetics regarding beauty. During the 50+ year long reign of emperor Xuanzong- the golden age of Tang dynasty saw great prosperity and flourishing of art and culture in China (the Kaiyuan era) However the disastrous An Lushan Rebellion caused a realm- wide war and ended this high watermark.

Art by 陸曼陀 Danling★Lu

The fabled Rubenesque Tang dynasty beauty Consort Yang Guifei (719- 756) - lit "Yang, the precious consort" with the hairdo of High Tang period. She wears a translucent silk gauze over her silk dress and reaches for a plate of freshly transported lychees from an ornate lacquered bowel with exotic Central Asian designs.

Resurgent Tang dynasty in 740 under Xuanzong (Li Longji)- During his long reign the Tang restabilized and reached new economical and developmental heights. Though having lost much of its northern territories to the 2nd Gokturk Khaganate, Tang eventually allied with the Uighurs which with Tang aid jointly usurped the Gokturks. Eventually the empire was plunged into calamity under the ambitious ethnic Sogdian and Turkic Tang general An Lushan.

Perhaps the most significant Tang Emperor of all, Xuanzong Emperor Li Longji's long reign alone marked the period known as "High Tang" 盛唐- the apex and golden age of the dynasty.

The once young Prince Longji came from a minor branch of the Tang imperial line of succession, because of his painful childhood where his mother was wrongfully slain by his paranoid grandmother- the notorious Empress Wu Zetian, he actively took up the leadership of his father's household- often dragging his own shy and inept father to political victories over the other branches of the Tang imperial clan until his father- then him respectively became Emperors.

The image was exactly that~ a teenager dragging his own father kicking and screaming toward the limelight of power, a kingmaker so unstoppable that in his audacity and decisiveness, that he already acted like a proactive monarch before he had even put his father on the throne with his bare hands.

THE SALVATOR EMPEROR

When he ascended the throne after the abdication of his father, the Tang was teetering, its ministry was bloated with corrupt and inept sycophants, on the frontiers, the empire had suffered a series of defeats against the rival Tibetan Empire and the resurgent 2nd Gokturk Khaganate. To all within the empire it was as if the empire had already entered an irreversible period of terminal decline. But Li Longji- now Xuanzong Emperor saved the day, instead, the falling dynasty shot up into a golden age which lasted for half a century.

By appointing able ministers and diligently ruling his empire, the Xuanzong Emperor vigorously restructured the entire empire's bureaucracy, clamped down on corruption, kicked out useless officials, greatly lowered taxes, prevented famines, rewarded all manner of talents, reduced cruel and capital punishments, heavily patronized arts and speech, while at the same time dealt several fatal blows to Tang's enemies on the frontier. And to the astonishment of both the Tang's citizens as well as its many neighboring kingdoms- The waning Tang instead soared into a new golden age and reached unachieved virgin height of prosperity and influence: one which Xuanzong continuously presided for over 5 decades in vigilance.

During this high time of Tang prosperity the empire accounts for nearly 1/4 of the global population and they capital of Chang An itself was a vast metropolis of some 1 million residents, including the suburbs and outskirts and this number balloons to nearly 2 million.

Above: Detailed grid of Chang An with the name of each of the ward listed. Note that the north-central square was reserved as the great Palace of the City. During the Tang, Emperor Taizong and Empress Wu would build the distinctively shaped Daming Palace to the city's north. Below: A 3D diagram of one of the main avenues of Tang- which lined in straight north- southern axis. Note the size of pedestrians marked with a red circle.

A digital reconstruction of one of the wards of Chang An- each with its own wall, gates, and drum towers. In total, Chang An possessed 108 wards of roughly similar sizes. The height of the walls enclosing each ward were on average 9 to 10 ft (3.0 m) in height