Types of facial makeup are a special method of makeup in Chinese traditional operas. Since every historical character or characters of a certain type are provided with a particular facial type, similar to music scores for singing and playing music, such a method of makeup is named "Types of facial makeup".

Among all Chinese traditional operas, types of facial makeup in Peking Opera have developed into the most systematic and mature one. Historical characters in Chinese traditional Peking Opera are provided with different types of facial makeup. They can reflect the identity, status, personality and appearance of the characters and therefore can intensify the artistic appeal on stage. As an impressionistic and exaggerated art, types of facial makeup in Peking Opera is featured by painting brows, eyelids and jowls in various patterns such as bat, swallow wing and butterfly wing. Also, it is characterized by portraying facial expressions with exaggerated nasal fossas and lipped fossas. The age can be reflected by the height and shape of "Crow's-feet", temperament by the opening and closing of "Chordal furrow", and personality by different patterns of "Glabella furrow". Additionally, in the types of facial makeup in Peking Opera there exist some invariable images including white-faced Tsao Tsao and black-faced Bao Zheng. The white-faced image symbolizes wickedness and viciousness, while black-faced image stands for equity and selflessness. Due to unchangeable rules in types of facial makeup, personalities of a character with certain facial makeup can be seen from the facial colors and figures.

As one of the onstage art techniques, various types of facial makeup in Peking Opera enable the audience to know a character's personality easily and accordingly get more involved in the appreciation of the performance. Thus types of facial makeup enjoy the fame of "Interior Pictures", which is an extremely crack skill of art exclusively existing in Chinese operas. Patterns of theatrical masks have served as a symbol of China. Nowadays, on the market there appear many exquisite and aesthetic commodities and stamps printed with such patterns, which are of high appreciating and collecting values.

Source: chinaculture.org