The Delights of Peking Opera Masks
1 min readChina’s Peking Opera radiates with the beauty of resplendent color-vivid, intense and glamorous. This artistic beauty comes not only from the costumes but also from the masks of exaggerated, dazzling designs, gleaming with reds, purples, whites, yellows, blacks, blues, greens, every diverse color imaginable.
Masks, applied to the two roles of the “jing”or “male character”and the “chou”or “clown” serve two purposes. One is to indicate the identity and character of the role. For example,a “red face”means the person is loyal and brave; a “black face”signifies the person is straightforward; and a “white face”identifies the person as crafty and evil. The other purpose is to express people’s appraisal of the roles from a moral and aesthetic point of view, such as respectable, hateful, noble, or ridiculous, etc.
Zhang Fei, ahero in the Peking opera Red Pond Besides being evocative, Peking Opera masks are in and of themselves an art of beautiful colors and designs for aesthetic appreciation. For example, Zhang Fei,a heroic character from the Three Kingdoms Period(220-280), has a facial design in Peking Opera in the shape ofa butterfly-a masterpiece perfectly combining personality and artistic design. The intriguing beauty of the color and design of Peking Opera masks adds to the attractive spectacle onstage.
Many Chinese folk handicrafts (e.g., kites, dough and clay figurines, carpets, tapestries), posters, advertisements, and fashions adopt Peking Opera masks as a source element in their designs.
