Unique to Chinese opera is its 500-year-old colour cryptography; eye-catching make-up, also called the pattern, that is a feature of the art form with a history dating back to the sacrifices of ancient times.
The development of make up in Chinese opera can be seen as representing the influence which the ancient gods exerted over the lives of ordinary citizens, just as with the Renaissance in Europe many centuries ago. In Chinese cultures long before, sacrifices were a most important ceremony, functioning as a communication device with deities for the promise of a good harvest and triumph in war.
At that time, the sorcerers involved in the ceremonies wore a special mask on which was written their tribe’s sacred sign. This was the “nuo” (傩).
Interestingly, this kind of performance is in fact still alive in parts of China as a ceremony for preventing disease and making sacrifices.
Years later, in the Bei Qi dynasty, a famous general called Lanling Wang (兰陵王) used masks featuring ferocious animal features covering his handsome appearance to scare his enemies, leading to his winning wars. When this story was performed, actors wore those masks on their faces, offering a better viewing experience for the audience, thus representing the debut of masks in entertainment performances. The masks first worn to keep deities at bay had become amusement for the masses.
Later in opera’s development, some regions kept the tradition of wearing masks on actors’ faces, while others employed make up as replacement.
Then, what do the performers use to draw those patterns on their face? A special kind of ink was made of wax, pigment absorbed from plants and oil made of crops was put on the face after being warmed by the hands. These inks were used for the background colour, specific details in males’ patterns and as lipstick. In modern society, by contrast, eyeshadows and eyebrow pens that are specialised for performances are used by the actors, but the ink on the face remains the tradition, although it is today largely chemical as opposed to plant based.
To understand the patterns on the faces and that they represent, we should introduce the four kinds of central characters in Chinese Opera; “Sheng”, “Dan”, “Jing”, and “Chou”.
Therein, Sheng represents young men, mainly well educated and willing to already working for the government. Dan, in contrast, is a young lady, mostly from upper-class families. Jing represents a special kind of male character who is intelligent, martial arts capable and often a general (strong colours here dominate). Last but not least is Chou, representing a comedic character in the story.
For Dan and Sheng, their face will be painted light pink (not Barbie pink but a mixture of pink with white!), stressing only their eyebrows, eyes and mouth to ensure their beauty and attractiveness on stage. In most situations, girls will have red eyeshadow all around their eyes, extended even to the cheekbone to show their health and youth.
The Chou character in Chinese Opera will have a large white area on their nose to make them funny and pathetic, similar in function to the red nose of a clown in western performances. Their eyebrows, to match their characteristic, will be short, coarse and shaped like the Chinese charcter, “八“.
But the most representative part of Chinese opera make up is that for Jing, with background colours for character’s face being mostly red, white, black, green, blue, gold, silver, yellow and purple; each with a specific function and famous characteristic. Black and red are most commonly employed.
With these central types of opera character, each clearly discernible by their representation, an experienced opera watcher can thus immediately identify each as soon as they set eyes on the stage.
Yet, there is a certain sense of predictability to the format, since the majority of opera scripts are based on historical events. Make up patterns employed therefore largely follow the stereotypes which Chinese people have for these characters. The fixed make up and the relatively uncomplicated characters bring audiences a sense of security and safety, no matter what type of opera they are watching, wherever they are. In their minds is only, “History favours the victors, while empires rise and fall”.
