Tibetan Opera Mask

Tibetan Opera Mask has a long history. It appeared before the formation of Tibetan Opera, which may be connected to the totem worship of original religion. "The statistics of Tibetan King" records that: the Tibetans held big performance of Tibetan Opera in order to praise the great achievements of Sontzen Gampo. There is a description: to make the king happy, we wore masks to act as lions and tigers, and the entertainers held drums dancing, presenting skills. It is said that this is the earliest record about the Tibetan Opera mask.

The Classifications of Tibetan Opera Mask

The mask of Tibetan Opera can be classified into several kinds, such as woodcarving, bronze statue, cardboard, leather and fabric. According to the molding target, the mask of Tibetan Opera can be divided into 4 kinds:

The First Kind is Called Wenba Mask.

The Tibetan "Wenba" means fisherman or hunter, which is the most important mask of Tibetan Opera. This kind of mask has blue and white colors. The blue mask is bound with cardboard or several layers of gauze. Satin was papered on the surface. It has exaggerating modeling, fine drawing and beautiful decoration, which belong to plane mask. The white mask is earlier than the blue mask, whose raw material is white goat, with simple modeling. It is a simple and rough mask in the early time of Tibetan Opera.

The Second Type is the Role Mask.

According to different roles in Tibetan Opera, different colors' masks will be made. Different colors symbolize different personalities of the people. This kind of mask often uses vivid colors, having strong comparison and exaggeration.

The white mask shows the pure, kind and mild characteristics, without harmful heart, which means the old live long lives, while the young is irrational.

The yellow mask shows people's shinning countenance, good merits, wide knowledge, which is worn by living Buhhda and the fairy.

The blue mask symbolizes justice and bravery, the appearance of brave.

The green mask shows the virtuous, the intelligence, the beauty and the modest, which belongs to Dumu, or the girl incarnated by Kong Xinnv.

The red mask symbolizes power and justice, showing resourceful, brave and wise. When playing the king or minister, the actors need wear red masks. Sometimes, the sacred in the religion often use red to show great anger of man.

The black mask shows fierce.

Half white and half black mask shows people mellifluous in speech and malicious in heart, with double dealings, sowing discord.

The Third Type is Animal Mask

The animal mask is often used in lion dancing and yak dancing by the Tibetan Opera group in Ganzi, Sichuan.

The Forth Type is the Mask of the Sacred in the Religion.

They often use very big masks made by clay sculpture, cloth and colored drawing. The modeling is concrete, real and exaggerating.

The Relationship Between the Tibetan Opera Mask and Tibetan Culture

Tibetan Opera Mask is developed by the Tibetans, who absorb the original Wu danging in Tibet, on the basis of the mask of the sacred in the religion. Now it has become the most distinguishing opera handicrafts of Tibetan nationality.

Any culture of a nation has vivid characteristics of nationality and region. If we take the mask culture of Tibet as a factor of Tibetan culture, it is naturally full of the breath of the bridge in the world and it also carries the individuality of this nation. At the same times, it should coordinate with the connotation and extension of many other culture factors.

This is our general understanding about Tibetan Opera mask culture, with which we may judge and evaluate its special characters.

The Vivid and Harmonious Color of Tibetan Opera Mask

According to the use of colors, after people competed with nature for long times, they have some general knowledge about red, yellow, green, blue, white and other colors. For example, white symbolizes pure and mild, because Tibet is a snow world, and white is the embodiment of the plateau, it naturally becomes the lucky color of the plateau. At first, they used different colors of the animal fur to make Tibetan Opera mask. This is the earliest origin that the mask uses colors. The use if color has unique meaning, which greatly enriches and emphasizes the personalities of different people. Generally speaking, the color using of Tibetan Opera mask agree with the drawing of Tibet. They are not only particular about brilliance, color, the strong comparison, but also ask for harmony. Because of its character of mask, every mask can show the understanding and use of mask, and also different combinations of lots of masks cab show the color effect.

The Exaggeration and Realistic Writing of Modeling of Tibetan Opera Mask

The Tibetan Opera mask has vivid color and harmony, and its modeling makes deep impression to people. Modeling is the innate character of mask. The exaggeration and realistic writing of modeling should be the most innate and important character of mask.

The Exaggeration of Modeling

Generally speaking, there is a strict measure regulation about the modeling of Buddhism. Besides, as for the concrete modeling of the God, there are 2 kinds: quiet modeling and angry modeling. Quiet modeling is also called kind modeling. Kind modeling is the expression of kind, generous, respectful, kind and close. The gods specialize in suppressing the evil are angry gods. The angry modeling, to some extent, provides the artiste a platform to use exaggeration and imagination. The exaggeration makes the modeling image and modeling beauty raise a high art realm, making its character more vivid.

The Realistic Writing of Modeling

Another technique of modeling about the Tibetan Opera mask is realistic writing. There are green forests, vast grassland, piles of cows and sheep and various birds and beasts. All these influence the development of the Tibetan Opera mask. Since the birth of the mask, its appearance was like beast. The original mask used the imitated scalp of animals, which is the simplest and truest expression. Up to now, there are many animal masks among the Tibetan Opera masks, whose modeling is mainly realistic writing.

It should be mentioned that although exaggeration and realistic writing is contradictory, there is fine integration in the modeling of Tibetan Opera mask.

The Emphasis of Religious Function

In Tibet, it is hard to distinguish the pure non-governmental or religious things. The development of Bon Religion culture increases a lot of religious breath to Tibetan Opera mask. The formation and development of Buddhism in Tibet greatly influences the Tibetan Opera mask. Oglethorpe Wade thinks that religion is the origin of art, while worship is the mother of all kinds of arts. The religious manners and arts have the same root in displaying emotions. The original art, or at least the formation and development of drama, originated from religious manners in emotional aspect.

The Variety of Texture and Modeling

The Tibetan Opera masks are rich and various. As for the function types of Tibetan Opera mask, the rich and various is world-famous in many nations. The Qiangmu mask in the temple, the mask of Tibetan Opera, the sacrificing mask, and the superb artistry mask are all well stocked. Among these, Qiangmu mask in the temple and the mask of Tibetan Opera specially emphasize this character and their types are various.

The ancient mask left by all periods of Tibetan history, is not only the historical witness of the Tibetan Opera mask's appearing and development, but also the historical witness of the formation and development on basic characters.

The Esthetics Meaning of Tibetan Opera Mask

The Tibetan Opera mask emphasizes the displaying of ugly and fierce appearances. While in esthetics, what kind of meaning does it have?

Mask is an art form that has Buddhism esthetics value. It has surpassed the esthetics connotation from the traditional meaning, which is the rebellion and dissimilation of beauty. Its serious, horrible and strange can be defined by the ugly connotation of Liu Dongti, a scholar. The shape of Tibetan Opera mask in general is the beauty in the ugly meaning, which gives people a serious, twisted, depressed feeling, which is a kind of gloomy beauty. It is the connotation of Tibetan Opera mask art that settles the unique meaning of mask art in esthetics. Maybe this is the total impression that Tibetan Opera mask gives people. Of course, we can't deny the diversity of national beauty appreciation character. It can be seen that every mask has its multiple beauty appreciation guide, which is more all-round and objective.

The Mystery of Tibetan Opera Mask

The Tibetan Opera masks are full of power, dramatic and strongly emotional. They created a fearful, mysterious feeling. The Tibetan Opera mask concretely displays that the Tibetans worship the hyperphysical power, which arouses strong emotional reflection among Tibetan people. The Tibetan Opera mask is a kind of object that they hope to create to use witchcraft, not reproduction of the object in nature, although this created object may be born out of nature.

The Displaying of Tibetan Opera Mask

The production of Tibetan Opera mask makes the ancient Tibetan Opera mask art go from the mysterious and gloomy world into the world of human beings. People can completely show through the pent-up life of mankind, which directly shows the true, kind, beautiful, false, fierce and ugly of people. As an ancient national art in Tibet, from a special angle, the mask shows this nation's morality, philosophy, beauty appreciation, rich imagination or excellent creation with religion. It is an important part of Tibetan culture. Because of the comparison, a nation's culture can show its existence. For the existence of national culture, what we should do is not simple imitation, but makes it more specific and distinguishing.