Peking Opera Masks or Beijing Opera Faces or Lian Pu mean the types of facial make-up or face-painting. In Beijing Opera, different types of facial paintings express different significances – Red facial painting for loyalty, black facial make-up for uprightness, yellow face for homicidal and tyrannical, blue and green face-painting for a forthright and testy temper and white “face” for the treacherous and evil men.

The craft of making traditional opera masks is unique to Beijing China. It can be traced back to the 12th century when the first mask appeared in a Song dynasty opera. A few strokes of the brush and every color turns a piece of plaster into a Peking opera mask.