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