Among the many characters composed in Lin Fengmian's works, the image of a beautiful lady is a unique one among his many manners of composition. Such artistic feminine portrayals are comparable to the Venus in Western art. Audiences passionate about his art have claimed it to be the"Oriental Goddess of Beauty". The formation of such a "Goddess of Beauty" has to do with the artist's unique experiences in judging beauty. As such, it has drawn our focus upon the compositions by Lin Fengmian portraying subjects of relevant figures.

Pertaining to Lin Fengmian's style of drawing ladies, the artist once recalled saying, they are "primarily from accepting the art of Chinese porcelain" "especially the influences from the clear transparent colors of Song dynasty's Guan Kiln and Longquan Kiln, employing in them a kind of inspirational technique that I derived from these things." The form and language associated with Lin Fengmian's portraits of ladies embodies a purity of figures, transparency of colors and elegance in style. Through a simple and elegant form, the characters in the portrait reveals an enchanting sentiment that stems right from the artist's inner calling to memories of youth and sublimation of feelings. As such, the feminine images of the Oriental Goddess of Beauty as seen in Lin Fengmian's compositions awaken the audiences' solemn and innocent beautiful inner feelings to become a unique symbol and image of feminine beauty in Chinese art.

Though the woman in "Lady Playing Moon Guitar" is in Western dress, her appearance such as the eyebrows, almond eyes and cherry-like mouth were from the archetypes of beauty in traditional Chinese literature. The "Moon Guitar" is a traditional Chinese musical instrument. The earliest record of the lady playing moon guitar theme in Chinese traditional art dates back to the Tang dynasty, with frescoes of performing musicians at the Dunhuang Caves. During the War of Resistance against Japan and his retreat to Chongqing, Lin would have certainly seen the famous exhibition of Dunhuang frescoe paintings made by Chang Dai-chien. During the early 1950's he himself experimented with painting from the Dunhuang frescoes. What Lin actually sought was not to follow the path of Chinese painting. The musical performance theme was in fact used as a research topic for creating new art, and it was his intention to create a style of art that surpassed Henri Matisse in novelty. He retained the outlining technique and the open face of traditional ladies from Chinese paintings, but for the subject's form and lines within the composition of the painting, as well as the use of the decorative background, he infused elements of modern Western art. The results were portrait paintings so characteristic of Lin individual style.