The exhibition "Characters in Peking Opera" presents stage characters of Peking Opera in a three-dimensional miniature, which brings to audience, at certain fixed moment of performance, the live and vivid character images with emphasis paid to the glory displayed by the unique and exquisite costumes of Peking Opera.

The exhibition is based on the excellent traditional Peking Opera repertoire, whose objective lies in search for truth, virtue and beauty of Peking Opera, a national treasure of China, by means of plastic art. Each act or character tells a complete different story whose content, though varies from one to another, is mainly engaged in fields such as history, politics, philosophy, ethics, literature, aesthetics, etc, of the preceding dynasties in the past 2,000 to 3,000 years, which could be traced to the same origin of the age-old traditional Chinese culture.

The role types of Peking Opera include sheng (male), dan (female), jing (painted face, male), and chou (clown, male or female) as well as various other roles. The four main techniques such as signing, dialogue and monologue, stylized action and acrobatic fighting, and the five methods including movement of hands, eyes, body, gesture and steps constitute the synthesis employed by Peking Opera to present its rich and diversified characters. Adornments and ornaments like crowns, helmets, hats, and scarves are professionally elaborated while the costumes and their accessories as well as weapons have been uniquely designed.

The exhibition "Characters in Peking Opera", composed of 60 pieces with an average height of 60cm, is selected from 37 Peking operas. Tianjin Yuandi Studio of Peking Opera Figures was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture of China to design and produce the exhibition. The production of the art pieces, made of various kinds of materials, requires nearly a hundred different working procedures to be completed. Just like little messengers, the Characters in Peking Opera, first of its kind to be created, will travel abroad in the first spring of the new millennium to extend their best regards to all the friends who love Chinese art and culture, in particular Peking Opera.