Mid Tang Dynasty Lady in "Blood Halo" Scar Makeup: 中唐贵妇- 血晕妆
Reenactor: 落日橙了
Music: Return to the Tang
A Mid- Tang dynasty lady in the distinctive stylized 血晕妆 "Blood Halo" slash makeup. Her hairstyle and clothing is that of High and Mid Tang design- which features a disk shaped slumped gathering of hair on the back of the woman. The dresses are often full figured, loose as well as formal. For warmth, she wears a lapelled cape to protect against the weather. High Tang especially was known for the iconic Rubenesque preference for plumpness in women- exemplified by the likes of the famous Consort Yang of Xuanzong- who was seen as the ("wasteful) Marine Antoinette of China.
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BEAUTEOUS "SCARS"- THE BLOOD HALO MAKEUP
血晕妆 Xiěyùn zhuāng (lit: "Blood Halo") - an extremely distinctive makeup that appeared during the Mid Tang era- (roughly 750s–820s) contextually it was an trying era of upsets and transition.
"Middle Tang" refers to the period which began immediately after the disastrous An Lushan Rebellion, and bookended by the failed Sweet Dew Plot of 835. Though the Tang emperors were able to crush the An Lushan Rebellion, it never managed to regain the hegemonic status it once enjoyed during the Early Tang 初唐 (618—712) and High Tang 盛唐 (650—755) eras. Still- this does not mean the Tang's fortunes at this point were sealed nor that a downward trajectory was irrevocable.
Mid Tang: Map of the Tang dynasty in 779 shortly after the ascension of emperor Dezong of Tang.Yellow represents the Tang empire, blue represents contested western territories lost to the resurgent Tibetan Empire, red represents the highly independent military circuits under the command of ambitious and autonomous warlords called the Jiedushi.
Observers in hindsight may be tempted to ascribe this period as one of "stagnation" but the wording may be too negative of a choice, a better description of the era would probably say it's one of bitter struggles, where some times the imperial court's wishes were achieved, while others failed. The particular nature of the Tang's bitter struggle in this period could be compared to that of a proverbial tug of war, where the Tang quarreled fiercely with its many challengers with mixed results.
The era began right after the conflagration of An Lushan's Rebellion and in the century that followed saw the Tang dynasty enter into a long protracted losing war against the resurgent Tibetan Empire across the west, the formation of dangerous blocks of rebellious hereditary warlords in the northeast called the Jiedushi, a surprising string of emperors that almost wrestled the control of the empire back and nearly restored the empire, and finally by the end of this period eunuchs seizing all de facto control in the imperial palace, further allowing warlords on the fringes to become masters of their hereditary local domains.
The Song dynasty scholar Wang Dang recorded in his "Supplement to the Collection of Tang Anecdotes" in the Mid Tang era, the women at times shorn off their eyebrows and then apply scar- like markings that look like scratches- either in 2 to 4 lines on the side of their cheeks. Though he did not elaborate as to the purpose of such very distinctive makeups. Archeological evidence had attested to his description in various murals.
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➢ ☯ Futsunomitama
➢ ☯ MK Celahir
➢ ☯ Muramasa
➢ ☯ Thomas Vieira
➢ ☯ BurenErdene Altankhuyag
➢ ☯ Stephen D Rynerson
➢ ☯ Peter Hellman
➢ ☯ SunB
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