@article{MCB4D973E,
title = "The Long Floating Scarf: A Special Ornament of Cloth in Chinese Art",
journal = "Acta Via Serica",
year = "2025",
issn = "2508-5824",
doi = "10.22679/avs.2025.10.1.008",
author = "Tianshu ZHU",
keywords = "cross-collared hanfu, scarf, uttariya, chaofu",
abstract = "There is a phenomenon in Chinese pictorial art that has never received adequate scholarly attention, i.e., the depiction of figures with traditional Chinese cross-collared clothes, called hanfu 汉服 or “Han cloth,” with a long, thin, and often floating scarf, seen not only on women but also men. In these depictions, the scarf is merely a motif that, in art, is usually reserved for Daoist deities, immortals, and ancient beauties; it is not a real scarf as it would appear in daily use. The use of this motif was clearly influenced by Buddhist art and it originated from Central Asia, from which it was originally derived from the upper garment of ancient Indian dress and Greco-Roman costume as filtered through the Parthian and Sasanian empires. In the past, scholars have usually focused their studies either on the scarves as used by real people in daily life in one region of one period, or scarf images only as they appear in Buddhist art. This study, for the first time, details the development of this motif across the art of Eurasia of different cultures and religions of over a thousand years. The scarf, although only a minor element in a painting or sculpture, reflects a grand and complex history of cross-cultural and cross-religious transmission and exchange."
}