Portrait of a Beauty

Portraits of Beauties is a collection of essays on classical aesthetics and everyday life by Meng Hui, a researcher of traditional Chinese material culture and a writer. In an accessible yet insightful style, the author explores the daily lives and aesthetic creativity of women in ancient China. The book is divided into seven sections: “Competing in Beauty,” “Expressions of Affection,” “Festivals,” “Finery,” “Clothing,” “Daily Life,” and “Refined Pleasures.” Meng Hui vividly and meticulously explains how women in ancient times cultivated an atmosphere of beauty and fashioned an elegant bearing. The ancient past and quiet antique objects hold a poetic spirit from bygone times. Focusing on the relationship between objects and everyday life, Meng Hui finds, in the details of daily routines, the ancients’ pursuit of ritual in beauty, inviting readers to reimagine classical beauty.