For a long time, The Picture of Zanhua Ladies has been regarded as the brush of Zhou Fang in the Tang Dynasty.
Zhou Fang was a famous painter after Wu Daozi in the late Tang Dynasty. Born in a famous family, I have done a long history of Xuanzhou, and I am good at painting ladies. The characters painted are simple in clothes, plump in figure and soft in color.
However, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, a group of experts and scholars, such as Shen Congwen, came to a negative conclusion after in-depth study of China's art history and ancient Chinese costumes. They made textual research from the perspectives of costumes, ornaments, hairstyles and the artistic style of the whole painting, and put forward their own different views.
One view is that, judging from the decoration of the characters in the paintings, the existing works were copied by people after the Tang Dynasty.
One view is that the style of long-sleeved mopping clothes appeared in the late Tang Dynasty. Accordingly, the picture may be a work of the late Tang Dynasty.
There is also a view that from the artistic style, description content, artistic conception and breath of painting, it is undoubtedly a work of Southern Tang Dynasty. Lu You's record in the Book of Southern Tang Dynasty that Li Yu, the ruler of Southern Tang Dynasty, "created a makeup with a high bun and beautiful head, which is effective for everyone" is strong evidence.
The above views are consistent on one point, that is, the costumes and dressing of the characters in the painting do not belong to the middle Tang Dynasty, so The Flower Lady can't be Zhou Fang's work. So, who should the author be? All theorists have not explained it. Therefore, there are still many scholars who believe in the traditional view. place