Scholars of Chinese opera are unable to say for certain how the tradition of face-painting came about, but they surmise it began with the wearing of masks in ancient times. The earliest record of mask wearing dates to the Chou Dynasty (1122-255 BC), during which masks were worn when stories about ghosts and gods were performed. Another historical record mentions King Lan Ling of the Northern Ch'i Dynasty (AD 550-577). It seems King Lan Ling was a brave warrior, but his appearance was quite feminine, and he found it difficult to be intimidating in battle. He eventually took to wearing a horrifying-looking mask when riding into combat. The legend of King Lan Ling somehow gave rise to a form of song and dance performance known as "Big Face". During the T'ang Dynasty, "Big Face" performances were popular, as they were believed to confer good fortune upon T'ang soldiers about to embark upon a military campaign. "Big Face" performers who used their teeth to keep the masks in place wore wooden masks. Hampered by the necessity of using their mouths, mask-wearers did not sing. Later, the masks were abandoned in favor of paint applied directly to the face as actors began to both sing and dance during performances. At first, only four colors of paint were used - red, white, black and blue. Over time, the patterns and colors employed were stylized and standardized.
Art historians have commented that Chinese artists traditionally seemed less interested in creating realistic depictions of the natural world, and more concerned with capturing the spirit or essence of an object. This is very much the case with face-painting. Ching facial patterns are highly stylized and resemble not at all an actual person's face. This is the beauty of Chinese face-painting. By sacrificing realism the Chinese are able to capture the inner nature of a character in all its glory or ugliness.
In general, the facial pattern, which appears on the face of a Ching character, can be defined as descriptive, hereditary, imitative, or name-based:
Descriptive -- The faces of most opera characters are designed to be illustrative of their personality. For example, villains have white faces to symbolize their cold-bloodedness. The character Hsiang Yu is depicted with an iron trident inscribed upon his forehead to symbolize his great strength and proclivity towards violent action.
Hereditary -- Father and son characters feature similar facial patterns and colors to indicate a family resemblance. In such a case, a character's face may not be a true indicator of his personality.
Imitative -- When two characters are similar in personality and behavior, they may be made up to resemble one another. This is the case with Li K'uei and his imposter, Li K'uei, as well as for Chang Fei and Chiao Tsan. The latter two are so similar in personality that their faces are identical with the exception that Chang Fei has large eyes while Chiao Tsan has small eyes.
Name-based -- Often a character's name or nickname influences the look of his face. In keeping with his nickname "Green-faced Tiger", the character Hsu Shih-ying is depicted with a green face.
To the uninitiated, the face patterns and colors, which appear upon the stage, may rapidly become an indistinguishable blur. Fortunately, all one has to do to unravel the secrets of Chinese face-painting is to learn to recogize the symbols and signs stamped upon each character's face.
