Opera Facial Makeup: Face Painting

Color used in face painting is regularized not only to exaggerate a character’s features, but also to identify the color that best brings out the personal disposition and qualities of a character in a play:

Red is a color that symbolizes justice, courage, loyalty and determination, as used in the face painting for General  Guan Yu and Zhao Kuangyin, the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty, and so on.

Yellow is a color that symbolizes valor, ferocity and cunning, as used in the face painting for Dian Wei, Wang Liao and Yuwen Chengdu.

Blue is a color that symbolizes tenacity, stubbornness, irrepressibility, violence and cunning personal character, as used for military commanders and gang leaders, such as Ma Wu, Shan Xiongxin and Dou Erdun.

Black is a color that symbolizes bold, valiant, straightforward, rigorous and serious characters, such as Zhang Fei, Niu Gao, Xiang Yu, Yuchi Gong, and Bao Zheng.