Astudy On The Relationship Between The Biography Of Women And Women Figures On Han Stone Carvings

Biography of Women compiled by Liu Xiang from the Western Han Dynastyaimed at educating women for the purpose of promoting female ethical standards andimproving women’sbehaviors. Through the combination of women’s legends,women’s pictures and the original images in the Biography of Women, a new systemof graphics was formulated. Those pictures and legends complement each otherperfectly, resulting in even stronger combined influence.This essay focuses on recorded women’s pictures in an effort to find outliteratures on the earliest records of female figures and their initial forms. Consideringthe evolution of female ethical standards in different eras, this research studies thecharacteristics of women’s pictures after they were integrated with the Biography ofWomen.The existing stone sculptures of female portraits in Wu’s Temple in JiaxiangTown,Shandong Province and Han Tomb column female murals in Gelinheer in InnerMongolia both represent women figures selected from the Biography of Women.From scene selection, composition of pictures to contexts of texts on pictures, they alldemonstrate the special educational function and beauty of the Biography of Women,effectively complementing and further illustrating the Biography of Women.This essay will together discuss women’s pictures and the Biography of Women,analyze the correlation and difference between their cultural and aestheticalsignificance, explore the features of texts and pictures, respectively, and pay attentionto the way how pictures and texts complement and help explain each other. In doingso, the in-depth meaning and actual impacts of the combination of pictures and textswill be studied, which differentiates this essay from previous studies.Research shows that, women’s pictures in the Han Dynast used the plots from theBiography of Women that are almost close to the climax part as scenes of the pictures,which has significant aesthetical value and also serves as psychological hints. Thesepictures can enhance the impacts from the Biography of Women on people’s knowledge system and raise people’s awareness of certain ethical standards.The combination of pictures and texts will maximize the influence ofcommunication. It can effectively facilitate the building of social awareness at thattime and can also promote collective consciousness at current society.