Chinese leather silhouette

Chinese leather silhouette is also called shadow play, and in some regions"monkey play" or "paper shadow". The leather silhouette show is an age-old popular folk art of China which even spreads abroad and thus becomes a worldwide art. The main prop of the shadow play is the PIYING (leather silhouette). It demands a superb handicraft to make such a prop.
In our days, numerous foreign artists make PIYING to decorate the display windows. The images painted on the PIYING are usually figures coming from historical theaters or myths. Despite of its difference in style made in divers areas in China, PIYING has the following characteristics in common: sculpture highly precise, simply shaped, decorative patterns exaggerated, which form together an artistic charm. The folk artists form a jingle to describe the skills and the process of making a PIYING: you begin with the sculpture of the head and the cap, followed by that of the eyebrows, the eyes and the pointed nose, you finish preparing the clothing, the hair and the mustache, and then you form the body by putting all together. You color the body and then your PIYING is ready.