The unique art style exhibited in the woodcut exorcist masks from Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties in the temples of Ping Village stands out among others in the Yangtze River valley. Carved perfectly straight or rounded, the characters are presented in a simple and natural way, poised, mysterious and ferocious. Tile woodcut by Chen Tuanfa, a seventh generation of a folk artist family in Ping Village,
is representative of today's art on exorcist masks. The same unsophisticated style is still largely visible in the art works in the region between Hunan and Jiangxi along the Yangtze River, the very birth place of the culture of exorcism.
The culture of exorcism in its very original mode of evil-dispelling and fortune-inviting is still well alive among the people in tile Yangtze River valley today. It is a live fossil to the study of Chinese ancient historical culture.
