White Face Painted Jing - Chinese Opera

Makeup/Face Painting Illustration 1.1 - Set 1
.
Peking opera, or Beijing opera is the most dominant form of Chinese opera which combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics.

There are currently four main role categories in Beijing Opera. They are Sheng - Male Role, Dan - Female Role, Jing - Painted Face Male and Chou - The Comedy Role.

The Jing is a male role with a painted face, who may play either a primary or a secondary role. The performer needs to be a forceful character with a strong voice, and able to exaggerate gestures. There are 15 basic facial patterns, but over 1000 specific variations of these, with each one being unique to a particular character. It could be a comic role, a villainous character, or a righteous person. He has a robust, gruff, bass voice, and along with his swaggering, self-assertive manner, be is the most forceful character in his scenes. The actor’s face colour speaks of his character - red for good, black for brave or upright or reckless, white for treacherous and cunning, yellow for brutal, and blue for wild.