Although the standard has changed many times over the thousands of years of Chinese dynasties, the shifting physical ideals reflected in statues and paintings, the facial proportions have stayed more constant. The body types often reflected the kind of lives that wealthy women were expected to lead, with very delicate, sickly women romanticized during the Ming dynasty while full-bodied builds were preferred during the T’ang when women were expected to be more physically active during the , while slender, vital styles were preferred during the Han dynasty.
The beauty as portrayed in numerous court paintings and sculptures had an oval face and plump cheeks. Having dimples, jiowu (pit of wines), were seen as attractive. The shape of the eyebrows was seen to reflect the character of the woman, and was important because inner qualities were seen as a component of feminine beauty. However the idealised shape of the eyebrows also changed over the ages as different characteristics were preferred. For example, during the Qin, bushy long eyebrows were idealized while in the T’ang dynasty the eyebrows were trimmed into a half-moon shape.
The proportions of the beauty were important in painting, with the “five eyes” ratio being that the distance between the two eyes as well as between the outer eye and opening of the ear each being one eye. The vertical proportions were to be divided into three with the distance between the hairline to eyebrow, eyebrow to bottom of nose, and bottom of nose to chin each being equal.
The eyes were consistently drawn as long and upwardly curved with black eyes in beauties as portrayed in paintings. The lips were also a consistent ideal and were small, round and red and were upwardly curved.
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