"The Picture of Admonitions of Women's History" is ink and color on silk, 25 cm wide and 249.5 cm long. It is now in the collection of the British Museum in the United Kingdom. The picture is divided into sections according to the content of the story, which is similar to today's comic strips. The whole volume was originally eleven sections, with each section depicting a story and a motto written in regular script. Now only nine sections remain. Since the author Gu Kaizhi is familiar with the life of aristocratic women, the picture shows some real aspects of the life of aristocratic women in ancient China to a certain extent. In terms of painting techniques, this work accurately depicts the identities and characteristics of various characters. A gorgeous aristocratic woman in the middle is dressing up in the mirror, and the maid on the left is combing the aristocratic woman's hair. A round bronze mirror is placed on a special frame, and there are long, round and other different shapes of dressing boxes next to the bronze mirror. There is also an aristocratic woman on the right side of the picture, holding a mirror in her left hand and arranging and admiring her bun with her right hand. Gu Kaizhi's outstanding achievement lies in the fact that his figure paintings take daily life as the theme, and his brushwork is like a spring silkworm spinning silk, with both form and spirit. In this painting, the expression, position and movement of the fluttering clothes of each figure all lead to the focus of the painting. To the center, each plot becomes a coherent whole, cleverly using the layout of Chinese painting. The postures and manners of these figures reveal the identity and beauty of these ancient palace women, better express the inner mental state of the figures, and fully present Gu Kaizhi's creative thoughts and painting skills.
The painter is good at using thin lines to outline the characters. We can see that the lines in the picture are circular and graceful, the characters' clothes are flowing, and the images are vivid. The skirts of the female historians are slender and graceful with wide hems, and each style is matched with streamers of different shapes and bright colors, showing a graceful and elegant style. The entire painting is outlined with thin lines, and only the hair, skirts, ribbons, etc. are dyed with color and slightly embellished, making it appear soft and lingering, as fine and smooth as silk. The rocks and trees painted in the background are all smooth and out of proportion to the figures. The painting style is very simple and the colors are very bright. The gossamer painting technique used by the artist to create "Proverbs of a Female History" makes the picture elegant, quiet, yet bright and lively, and its excellent painting language is impeccable. The emergence of this kind of line also influenced later generations to gradually no longer add color to this demure line, making it an independent type of painting, which is called "white drawing". The "line drawing" skill has also become a basic skill for Chinese painting painters.