Nüshi zhen tu I
Recently, The Admonitions Scroll (Nüshi zhen tu), celebrated as one of the most important paintings in Chinese art, concluded its exhibition at the British Museum. To protect this fragile masterpiece—the earliest surviving Chinese handscroll—the display was limited to just six weeks, with each visitor allowed no more than ten minutes of viewing time.
While the exhibition reflected the British Museum’s customary academic rigor, its presentation of the scroll was rather brief, and the inscriptions within the painting were left untranslated. Such curatorial choices inevitably left many visitors, who had come from afar to see the famed work, feeling a sense of incompleteness. That a national treasure once praised by the Qianlong Emperor as a “divine masterpiece of the imperial collection” could not be appreciated within its original cultural context—nor offer its admirers a deeper understanding of their own history—is, without doubt, a pity.
Though The Admonitions Scroll is often regarded as one of the starting points of classical Chinese painting, its significance extends far beyond art. It functions almost like a mirror of Chinese history—an illustrated compendium of imperial ideals, portraying how rulers since the Eastern Jin dynasty imagined the virtues of the ideal woman. In this essay, ArtAnt introduces and interprets this most studied—and yet most enigmatic—masterpiece in the history of Chinese art.
Mainstream scholarship holds that, to give Zhang Hua’s text more vivid expression, the court then ordered the painter Gu Kaizhi to illustrate it—thus producing The Admonitions Scroll. The painting was already recorded in the Tang dynasty, and later listed in the Xuanhe Catalogue of Paintings from the late Northern Song (960–1127). Over the centuries, it passed through the hands of many collectors, whose seals and inscriptions remain visible on the scroll. Ultimately, it entered the collection of the Qianlong Emperor.
The Admonitions Scroll was born from a political crisis. According to the British scholar Shane McCausland, during the reign of Emperor Hui of Jin (r. 290–301 CE), Empress Jia Nanfeng (257–300) provoked widespread discontent at court through her violent and erratic behavior. The court therefore commissioned the poet-official Zhang Hua to compose a didactic text intended both to admonish the Empress and to offer moral guidance to the women of the palace.
After the Boxer Rebellion in 1899, the painting was acquired by a British officer and subsequently sold to the British Museum, where it remains today. The surviving scroll is incomplete, missing the first three of the original twelve scenes—presumably lost long ago. A monochrome paper copy from the Southern Song period (1127–1279), preserving all twelve scenes, is now held in the Palace Museum in Beijing.
At the opening of The Admonitions Scroll, the accompanying text evokes the following scene:
When heaven and earth first parted and all things came into being, the first division was that of yin and yang—the two primal forces. As breath and substance rose and fell, the world gradually took on form and order. When Fuxi, the ancient sage, first established the ways of civilization, heaven and humanity were finally distinguished, and from this distinction arose the beginnings of ritual.
First came the differentiation between husband and wife; then followed the hierarchy of ruler and subject. Thus the human world attained order, and the principles of governance and moral teaching took shape. The virtue of women lies in gentleness; their inner cultivation is one of grace and composure—an auspicious sign. Her temperament is mild, her bearing serene, her heart upright and sincere; she is suited to preside over the inner household. On the day of marriage, she dons her ceremonial robe, her girdle tied with care, her mind reverent and cautious. She tends to the kitchen herself with devotion and humility, earning admiration for her pure and virtuous character.
Why, then, has The Admonitions Scroll survived through China’s long succession of dynastic rises and falls, seemingly untouched by the ruin of empires? The answer lies, perhaps, in its very beginning. The opening scene presents a vast vision of cosmic origins: out of the primordial chaos, a creative will brings forth duality (“the One gives birth to Two”), and this duality unfolds into further multiplicity (“Two give birth to Three”), until at last it condenses into the material world we perceive. In this cosmology, the order of human society is merely the final branch of the greater order of Heaven and Earth.
Even when the poem turns to worldly matters in its later lines, the sense of reverence for natural law continues to flow through everyday scenes. The woman’s acts—arranging garments, preparing meals—are not mere domestic chores, but enactments of cosmic harmony, grounding celestial order in human ritual.
This opening, then, establishes an origin of authority that could scarcely be loftier. In modern politics, power may derive from the people or from violence. But in The Admonitions Scroll, the imagined source of power reaches directly back to the mysteries of creation itself, endowing authority with divine sanction. From Fuxi’s crafting of humanity to the formation of marital and political hierarchies, the text unfolds seamlessly—as though human governance, with all its ranks and rites, were simply the extension of divine intention.
The first lines, with their imagery of “Two Polarities and Four Forms,” bear a distinctly Daoist flavor; yet the later mention of Fuxi molding humankind touches directly on China’s own creation mythology. The verbs used here are strikingly vivid: in describing Fuxi’s act of creation, the poem says “he molded and shaped,” suggesting the tactile work of clay modeling. The text even writes his name as Paoxi—where pao (“to cook” or “to roast”) evokes the kitchen’s heat and transformation. Such imagery resonates intriguingly with Western creation myths, like God forming Adam from clay. In just a few lines, the text compresses an enormous range of meaning, encompassing the very core of Daoist cosmology and Chinese mythic origins.
If the transition from “Dao” to “divinity” sets the opening tone of the power narrative, then the shift from “divinity” to “Confucian order” marks its transformation. Once humankind has been forged in the divine “kitchen,” life begins—life as beings who bridge Heaven and Earth. And what kind of life is this? It is one that takes the balanced relationship between husband and wife as its root, the household as its core, and radiates outward to structure society at large.
This pattern of order, expanding outward from the household, mirrors the Confucian conception of moral and cosmic hierarchy: first the cultivation of the self, then the regulation of the family, the governance of the state, and at last the pacification of the realm beneath Heaven. By the time the poem concludes, it is easy to envision this divine woman now dwelling rightly within her earthly chamber. The order remains continuous with that of Heaven, yet by the end, the ethereal Daoist vision has transformed into a pragmatic Confucian governance: the human realm is divided into inner and outer spheres, and within this framework, the scope of a woman’s life is clearly and deliberately defined.
The Admonitions Scroll has endured beyond the cycles of dynastic rise and fall precisely because it achieves a seamless threefold transformation—from Dao to divinity to Confucian order—thereby granting Confucian governance a sacred, Heaven-bestowed source of authority.
Equally significant is the way the opening imagery of yin and yang—the two primal forces—gradually transforms into the distinction between the masculine and the feminine. If the first scene concerns itself with an abstract depiction of ideal womanly virtue, then from the second scene onward, the focus shifts: human behavior becomes gendered, and the gestures and bearing of a “respectable woman” are defined in visible, embodied form.
What is especially intriguing is this shift in tone and style. The woman in the opening scene appears ethereal—gentle, radiant, and almost transcendent. Yet as the scroll unfolds, the visual language changes: the lofty ideal descends into the tangible realm of conduct and decorum.
To move King Zhuang of Chu, Consort Fan Ji abstained from eating fish and meat for three years.
This scene depicts the story of Fan Ji, the consort of King Zhuang of Chu (who died in 591 BCE). She sought to dissuade her husband from excessive hunting and indulgent feasting, and to make her point, she refused for three years to eat the meat of any animals he had hunted. In the Admonitions Scroll copy preserved at the Palace Museum, Fan Ji is shown kneeling before an empty table. The sacrificial vessels beside her stand conspicuously unused—an eloquent symbol of her restraint and her moral protest.
The story of “Fan Ji Moves King Zhuang” originates from Biographies of Exemplary Women (Lienü Zhuan), compiled by Liu Xiang during the Western Han dynasty. It begins:
“Fan Ji was the consort of King Zhuang of Chu. When the King first ascended the throne, he took pleasure in hunting. Fan Ji admonished him repeatedly, but when he would not listen, she ceased to eat the flesh of birds and beasts. The King repented and thereafter devoted himself to state affairs.”
Yet Fan Ji’s abstinence from fresh game is only the prelude to the story. Its true focus lies in the later dialogue between Fan Ji and King Zhuang concerning his choice of ministers. The King favored a man named Yu Qiuzi, but Fan Ji observed that Yu was “virtuous yet not loyal,” for though he promoted his own followers, he neither recommended men of true ability nor dismissed the unworthy. Such behavior, she warned, “blinds the ruler and blocks the path of the worthy.”
From this, Fan Ji articulated a principle of discerning talent that resonated through later political thought: “To know the worthy yet not promote them is disloyal; to fail to recognize the worthy is unwise.” In The Admonitions Scroll, the later portion of this “debate on loyalty and virtue” is not depicted. But the learned rulers who viewed the painting would surely have recalled it on their own.
To reform Duke Huan of Qi, the Lady of Wei trained her ears to forget the sound of wanton music. With steadfast resolve and a lofty sense of righteousness, she stirred the ruler’s heart to repentance.
This scene portrays the story of Lady Feng, consort to Emperor Yuan of Han (r. 48–33 BCE). In 38 BCE, during a court spectacle in which ferocious animals were made to fight before the emperor, a black bear suddenly escaped its enclosure. Without a moment’s pause, Lady Feng threw herself in front of the emperor to block the bear’s path. The beast was killed by guards, and Lady Feng survived by a stroke of fortune.
The story originates from the Biographies of Exemplary Women (Lienü Zhuan), in the chapter on the “Wise and Enlightened.” The text records:
“Duke Huan delighted in licentious music; Lady Wei therefore refused to hear the songs of Zheng and Wei.”
Yet this act of abstaining from unvirtuous sounds is only the beginning. Equally telling is the scene that follows. When Lady Wei once saw Duke Huan approaching, she bowed low and humbly asked to be punished. Puzzled, the Duke asked why. She replied:
“I have heard that a ruler’s countenance reveals three states. When his expression is radiant with indulgence and delight in pleasure, it is the color of feasting and excess. When it is withdrawn and solemn, heavy with stillness, it is the color of grief and misfortune. When it is tense and fierce, with movement in hands and feet, it is the color of battle and aggression.
Now, as I behold Your Grace walking with lifted heels, your face stern, your voice raised—the color of Zheng and Wei is upon you. Therefore I beg forgiveness, for I have seen it.”
Upon hearing her words, Duke Huan understood her admonition. Deeply moved, he elevated Lady Wei to the rank of principal consort, establishing the harmony of “the lady governing the inner realm, and Guan Zhong governing the outer.” The Duke, in humility, declared: “Though I am but a foolish man, with such guidance I may yet stand firm in the world.”
In these two scenes from The Admonitions Scroll, both derived from the Biographies of Exemplary Women, Zhang Hua does not explicitly include the moments when Fan Ji and the Lady of Wei admonish their rulers in the accompanying text of the Admonitions. Yet it is not difficult to perceive that both women embody a wisdom of governance surpassing that of the monarchs themselves—and at times, even that of the ministers who surround them.
This marks a key distinction between The Admonitions and the later social discourse on “female virtue.” The women in Zhang Hua’s work are neither blindly obedient nor merely loyal to the personal will of the ruler before them. Rather, they act as guardians of the moral integrity that a truly enlightened sovereign ought to possess. Their ultimate service is rendered not to the emperor as a private individual of flesh and blood, but to the very order of imperial authority itself.
For over a thousand years, China’s dynastic system endured, yet it never resolved the fundamental question of the “good emperor”: how could one ensure that descendants born in the seclusion of the palace would preserve the legacy established by their founding ancestors?
In this light, Fan Ji and the Lady of Wei are shaped as mechanisms of correction within the imperial order. When a ruler strays from the proper path, these women become embodiments of moral rectitude and instruction—forces of restoration that guide the sovereign back toward the right course.
When a black bear climbed out of its cage, Lady Feng rushed toward it. Could she have felt no fear? She knew she might die—yet she did not hesitate.
This scene differs from the earlier episodes, which depict specific historical figures. Here, the text conveys a universal meditation on the impermanence of fame and renown. According to scholar Fang Wen, the mountains depicted in the painting derive from Han dynasty Boshan incense burners (c. 206 BCE–220 CE), ritual objects often used as grave offerings or in religious ceremonies. The burner’s lid is shaped like a mountain, symbolizing the Penglai Immortal Peaks, legendary abodes of Daoist immortals. When incense is burned, smoke curls up from the mountain’s crevices, and the carved mythical beasts and immortals seem to appear and vanish amidst the mist, as if the sacred mountains themselves were shrouded in clouds.
This episode is the first surviving scene in the British Museum’s version of The Admonitions Scroll (although its accompanying inscription has been lost). In the painting, Lady Feng stands face to face with the bear, while a guard lunges forward with a spear. The emperor and two palace attendants recoil in terror behind her. To the left stands another woman, identified as Lady Fu. According to the Hou Han Shu (“Book of the Later Han”), Lady Fu fled at the sight of the bear—suggesting that the painter may not have followed Zhang Hua’s text exactly, but introduced visual contrasts of his own.
In the Palace Museum version, Lady Fu appears instead in the following scene, attached somewhat inexplicably to the story of Ban Jieyu. This rearrangement diminishes the dramatic contrast found in the British Museum’s scroll, where Lady Feng’s courage and Lady Fu’s cowardice form a striking moral opposition.
The historian Zhao Dongmei, in her work Law and the Human Heart, has offered a penetrating observation: eunuchs, she writes, could be understood as a kind of “fleshly barrier” surrounding the palace women—both protecting them from intrusion by outsiders and serving as the emperor’s living instruments of surveillance. In this moment, Lady Feng herself becomes such a barrier—transforming into the emperor’s own “fleshly wall,” shielding him with her body from mortal danger.
If, in the previous two scenes, Fan Ji and the Lady of Wei demonstrated their virtue by renouncing pleasure, here Lady Feng shows the courage to renounce life itself.
How heavy is the weight of imperial power? Heavy enough to castrate men and to claim the very lives of women. Yet just as Fan Ji and the Lady of Wei moved their rulers to moral awakening, Lady Feng too survives the jaws of the beast and wins a fortunate end.
Lady Ban clearly voiced her refusal, thus forgoing the delight of riding beside her lord. Could she have felt nothing? Of course she did—but to forestall the slightest hint of impropriety, she kept her distance.
This scene portrays the story of the Lady of Wei, consort to Duke Huan of Qi (who died in 643 BCE). Seeking to dissuade her husband from indulgence in sensual music, she refused to listen to such melodies herself—even though she was known as a woman of exceptional musical talent. In the Palace Museum version of The Admonitions Scroll, she is shown listening instead to the solemn court music of ritual propriety, performed on bronze bells (bianzhong) and chime stones (qing). This dignified music stands in stark contrast to the decadent tunes her husband favored.
In the painting, the emperor rides within his curtained palanquin, while Lady Ban walks a few steps behind on foot. The composition closely resembles the depiction of the same story found on the lacquered screens from the tomb of Sima Jinlong. Yet in that version, the emperor rides alone, whereas in The Admonitions Scroll, another palace woman sits beside him—signifying that Emperor Cheng has disregarded Lady Ban’s remonstration.
A closer look, however, reveals an undercurrent of irony in this otherwise solemn scene. The poem’s tone is grave, yet the attendants’ gestures verge on the playful: they wink and glance toward Lady Ban, their bodies slightly exaggerated in motion as they hurry the carriage toward the inner palace. Lady Ban’s refusal to share the emperor’s seat, rather than admonishing him effectively, merely leaves the place open for another favored consort.
Because of this subtle humor, some scholars have interpreted the scene as one of courtly life rather than moral instruction, questioning whether its admonitory intent was meant to be taken seriously. Others, however, argue that even if Emperor Cheng ignored Lady Ban’s advice, the outcome of history itself vindicates her. After Lady Ban’s time, the emperor fell deeply entangled with the sisters Zhao Feiyan and Zhao Hede—figures whose beauty and ambition soon threw the inner palace into turmoil. (Zhao Feiyan, famously slender, and the voluptuous Yang Guifei of the Tang dynasty later formed the two poles of the Chinese aesthetic ideal known as “Huanfei yanshou”—“Yang’s fullness and Zhao’s fragility.”)
A few years after Emperor Cheng’s death, the Han dynasty was usurped by Wang Mang. In the Book of Han, the emperor’s indulgence in private pleasures is described as a direct cause of dynastic decline. In this sense, Lady Ban’s restraint and foresight, though ignored in her time, stand as an enduring warning.
“The Way reaches its height without destroying; all things flourish without lasting forever. When the sun reaches its zenith, it sinks; when the moon is full, it wanes. Even greatness piles up like dust, while decline strikes as suddenly as an arrow loosed. All that rises must fall; all that reaches its peak will decay. Every living thing passes through the cycles of growth and decline.”
This scene depicts the story of Lady Ban, consort to Emperor Cheng of Han (r. 33–7 BCE). According to the Book of Han and the Biographies of Exemplary Women, Lady Ban declined to ride in the same carriage as the emperor. Her reasoning was refined and moral: in paintings of sagely rulers, the sovereign is always shown accompanied by his ministers; in depictions of decadent kings, he is surrounded by women. Thus, she considered it improper to appear publicly beside the emperor in his carriage.
Unlike the Western tradition, which often represents the divine through anthropomorphic forms, Chinese civilization—shaped by Daoist thought—tends toward a more ecological understanding of sanctity. This inclination is reflected in the passage of poetry and prose here: humans, in observing nature, recognize a law embedded within the cosmic order and seek to enact their understanding of that law in daily life. Ancient observers saw in the cycles of the sun and moon the interdependence of rise and decline, and from this they derived the insight that fortune and misfortune, blessing and calamity, are not fundamentally separate, but rather reflect a universal principle of continual alternation and transformation.
From the perspective of the ruled, power may appear formidable; yet from the viewpoint of the powerful, it often reveals its acute instability. This scene in Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies captures precisely this tension: the unease felt by those in high positions, and the sober awareness and self-discipline it demands. One must not only recognize the side of power that “strikes as suddenly as an arrow loosed,” but also cultivate restraint, viewing honor as precarious as a mound of dust.
Due to space constraints, the final six scenes of Admonitions of the Instructress to the Court Ladies will be presented in a subsequent installment. In today’s context, where gender perspectives have evolved, understanding the gender concepts embedded in the scroll has become a new area of inquiry. Since the work represents a set of norms imposed by men on women’s behavior, some scholars have interpreted it as reflecting the “male gaze.” For instance, as early as 1967, the Japanese scholar Hironobu Kohara suggested that the scroll could be seen as a type of genre painting, primarily designed to satisfy male audiences. Certain scenes in the scroll carry sexual undertones or comic elements, which some scholars have argued may constitute a form of parody. For example, Aubrey Spiro of the University of California notes that in Zhang Hua’s biography in the Book of Jin, it is recorded that he composed the Admonitions as a form of “satire.”
It is not incorrect to say that the women in Admonitions of the Instructress are depicted through the “male gaze.” Yet more precisely, they are shaped through a gaze of imperial authority. The difference is subtle but significant: men themselves are also molded by this gaze. The scroll’s conception of order can be seen as simultaneously sharpening and disciplining both men and women. Indeed, judging from the large number of seals and colophons in the later portion of the scroll, successive emperors and literati treasured it far beyond the status of a typical admonitory text. It circulated within the imperial palace as a “divine work” and persisted through secondary creative forms, influencing the paintings of Wu Daozi and Li Gonglin, the calligraphy of Mi Fu and Dong Qichang, and the lacquer panels of Sima Jinlong. One can say that over the span of a millennium, it continuously inspired male creators, without exaggeration.
This theme is closely tied to the political environment surrounding the scroll’s creation. Scholars have speculated about the circumstances that prompted the painting’s production, but all hypotheses point to a climate of instability. Fang Wen suggests that the scroll was created during the reign of Northern Wei’s Emperor Xiaowu (Sima Yao, 372–396 CE), after a favored concubine, Zhang Guiren, jokingly mocked for being over thirty, killed him in a drunken altercation. Alarmed by the extreme behavior of palace women, the court commissioned Gu Kaizhi to produce an instructive handscroll. Yang Xin of the Palace Museum, however, considers it “highly probable” that the scroll was commissioned by Emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei (471–499 CE), citing historical evidence that palace women had already lost moral restraint, monopolized power, and even conspired to kill imperial heirs. Both lines of reasoning converge on the same point: the court’s instability was closely tied to violence and disorder within the palace.
However, these interpretations are not mainstream in current scholarship. Many scholars argue that such readings risk exaggerating minor features while overlooking the larger purpose. The tradition of admonitory literature has a long and continuous history in China, and Admonitions of the Instructress can even be seen as an early model of this literary form. American scholar Julia Murray points out that “satire” (讽) does not merely imply ridicule, but also carries the sense of critiquing social or political problems. If Zhang Hua, as a civil official, had written the Admonitions merely to mock the powerful Empress Jia, why did he not face fatal retribution? According to the Book of Jin, he later earned the empress’s respect and received significant appointments. Murray suggests that this outcome reflects Zhang Hua’s moral intention: he wrote the Admonitions as a conscientious critique of societal and political failings.
Moreover, within its admonitions, one senses a certain helplessness experienced by men in power in the face of historical cycles. Because they cannot, through their own strength, transcend the impermanence of power, they borrow the voice of an imagined perfect woman, using it to provide consolation from the rear and guidance from the front—both a moral anchor and a symbolic compass in navigating the uncertainties of rule.
Author : Art Ant