Peking Opera is an extraordinary cultural symbol of China, full of energy, skill, and musical traditions. But the key to appreciating and understanding Peking Opera as it depicts scene after scene of ancient stories from noble and brave characters like Zhang Fei and Guan Yu from the Three Kingdoms, fictitious figures like Monkey King from Journey to the West, shady figures like Cao Cao from the Three Kingdoms and so on, lies in understanding the patterns of the opera’s facial makeup.
Peking Opera is an extraordinary cultural symbol of China, full of energy, skill, and musical traditions. But the key to appreciating and understanding Peking Opera as it depicts scene after scene of ancient stories from noble and brave characters like Zhang Fei and Guan Yu from the Three Kingdoms, fictitious figures like Monkey King from Journey to the West, shady figures like Cao Cao from the Three Kingdoms and so on, lies in understanding the patterns of the opera’s facial makeup.In traditional Peking Opera, each of the historical characters portrayed in the performance has its own unique design painted on the face of the actor. Over time, these designs have become a set stereotype. Audiences that are old hands of Peking opera can differentiate at first glance the heroes from the thugs, the intelligent from the foolish, liked from the despised, and so on just from the facial makeup painted on the actors’ faces. In addition to the color of the makeup, the characteristics, personality, moral character, and the like are displayed through the symbolic and exaggerated artistic designs on their faces. In other words, facial makeup is the portrait of each actor’s character.
