Face reading is the traditional practice of observing the face, its colour, its lustre and its areas, and reading what it shows as a reflection of a person’s constitution and vitality. Long before modern tests, people in many cultures learned to look at the face closely, because it is one of the most honest and visible surfaces the body offers. In Chinese medicine this looking is the first of four classical examinations [2] [3].
At the Vitalist Healing Traditions Society, face reading is one of several gentle observation methods we use to understand the whole person. Here is where it comes from, how a face is read in the Chinese tradition, and what a face reading chart shows.
Key takeaways
- Face reading observes colour, lustre and the areas of the face, read as a picture of constitution and vitality.
- In Chinese medicine, looking is the first of the four examinations: looking, listening and smelling, asking, and touching [3].
- The classic face reading chart pairs five areas, the forehead, both cheeks, the nose and the chin, with the five phases [7].
- Colour that is bright, moist and gently veiled is read as a sign of good vitality [3] [6].
What is face reading?
Face reading is the art of looking at a face slowly and attentively. In the healing traditions, a change in complexion, a soft shadow or a shift in the tissue around the eyes is read as part of a larger story about digestion, rest, hydration and vitality. The face is a meeting place: in the words of the Lingshu, the blood and qi of the twelve channels and three hundred and sixty five network vessels all rise to the face [4].
That is why the traditions see the face as a mirror of the whole. They read it alongside the eyes, the tongue, the pulse and the person’s own story, and they read it gently: subtle shifts in complexion are living signals, read in the context of the whole person.
Where does face reading come from?
The oldest written foundations of Chinese face reading are in the Huangdi Neijing, the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic. Tradition credits it to the Yellow Emperor around 2600 BC, and the book probably dates from around 300 BC, perhaps compiled from the writings of several authors [1]. It takes the form of “a discussion between Huangdi and his physician” [1].
Its chapter on the five colours, Wu Se, also weighs whether a colour is lustrous or withered [5], and names the areas of the face one by one: the nose as the Bright Hall, the space between the brows as the Watchtower, the forehead as the Courtyard, and the sides of the cheeks as the Screens [5]. A later classic, the Nanjing, names four ways of knowing a person and calls the first, knowing by looking, “spirit”, explaining that it means seeing the five colours [2].
The same attention to the face continued through the centuries. A woodblock chart in the 1624 edition of Wang Shuhe’s Secrets of the Pulse shows the face divided into sectors whose complexion changes with the seasons [8].
How is a face read in Chinese medicine?
Chinese medicine face reading looks at three things together: the colour of the face, where that colour appears, and its lustre.
Colour
Chinese medicine groups facial colours into five: green, yellow, red, white and black [9]. The Wu Se chapter matches each colour to an organ: blue green to the Liver, red to the Heart, white to the Lung, yellow to the Spleen and black to the Kidney [5]. Teachers stress that these links are read with care and flexibility, as part of a whole picture [9].
Lustre
Lustre is the gloss of the skin, its reflective, shiny and smooth quality [3]. In the tradition, a healthy face keeps a gloss that is “always bright and moist”, and the ideal colour is a blend of red and yellow with a clear brightness [3]. The Suwen describes the ideal of each colour with lovely images: red like cinnabar wrapped in white silk, white like a goose feather, blue green with the sheen of green jade, yellow like realgar wrapped in silk gauze, and black like layered lacquer [6]. In every case the colour is alive, moist and softly veiled.
The brightness of the eyes and the five colours are the flowering of qi. Suwen, chapter 17, in our rendering [6]
What does a face reading chart show?
A face reading chart maps the areas of the face to the organs and the five phases. The classic version has five zones. A woodblock chart from a 1726 edition, made “showing the significance of each of the sectors of the face”, gives them plainly [7]:
- Forehead: Heart, Fire, the South.
- Left cheek: Liver, Wood, the East.
- Nose: Spleen, Earth, the Centre.
- Right cheek: Lung, Metal, the West.
- Chin: Kidney, Water, the North.
Left and right are the person’s own, so on a chart drawn facing you the Liver sits on your right. The Wu Se chapter adds a finer map along the centre line of the face, from the throat above the brows to the Lung between them and the Heart at the root of the nose [5].
By the numbers
How does Chinese face reading differ from physiognomy?
Europe developed its own art of the face, physiognomy, with a different aim: reading character from the shape of the body and face [10]. Its earliest surviving text is the Physiognomonica, a treatise transmitted under Aristotle’s name and written in his school in the decades around 300 BC [10].
The line continued in the Renaissance with Giambattista della Porta, whose De humana physiognomonia was first published in 1586 and compared human faces with those of animals [11]. Its best known work is Johann Caspar Lavater’s Physiognomische Fragmente, published in four volumes in Leipzig and Winterthur from 1775 to 1778 [12].
The two lines share a love of close looking, and each keeps its own focus. Physiognomy studies the form of the face. Chinese face reading studies its colour and lustre as living expressions of vitality, which is the thread we follow at the Society. The European interest in complexion also lives on in the four temperaments.
How do we use face reading at the Society?
A face reading is one thread we weave together with the eyes and with your own goals. The traditions we teach each map a surface of the body in their own way, and they read beautifully side by side:
| Practice | Tradition | What it reads | Read more |
|---|---|---|---|
| Face reading | Chinese medicine | Colour, lustre and the five zones of the face | Chinese Medicine |
| Iridology | Iridology & Sclerology | The iris, read as a map of constitution | Iridology reading |
| Sclerology | Iridology & Sclerology | The whites of the eyes and their fine lines | Sclerology chart |
| The four temperaments | Herbalism | Complexion and temperament in the European tradition | The four temperaments |
| The five phases at the table | Eastern dietetics | The same five phases, read in food and season | Eastern Dietetics |
Gathered into a Whole Reading, these observations help us offer gentle, individualised suggestions for food, rest and daily rhythm, in the spirit of the vitalist approach. For the wider picture, explore our guide to iridology and sclerology.
Frequently asked questions
What is face reading?
In the healing traditions, face reading is the close observation of the face, its colour, lustre and areas, read as a reflection of a person’s constitution and vitality [5] [6].
What is Chinese face reading?
In Chinese medicine it is part of looking, the first of the four examinations of looking, listening and smelling, asking, and touching [3]. The Nanjing calls knowing by looking “spirit”, and explains it as seeing the five colours [2].
How do you read a face in Chinese medicine?
The tradition looks at the five colours, each matched to an organ, at where each colour appears, and at lustre. Colour that is bright, moist and softly veiled, like cinnabar wrapped in white silk, is read as a sign of good vitality [5] [6].
What does a face reading chart show?
It maps areas of the face to organs and phases. In the classic five zone chart, the forehead goes with the Heart and Fire, the left cheek with the Liver and Wood, the nose with the Spleen and Earth, the right cheek with the Lung and Metal, and the chin with the Kidney and Water [7].
Is face reading the same as physiognomy?
They are two different lines. European physiognomy, from the Physiognomonica of around 300 BC to della Porta and Lavater, read character from the shape of the face [10] [11] [12]. Chinese face reading reads colour and lustre as signs of vitality [5].
Sources
- Curran J. The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine. BMJ 2008;336(7647):777.
- Nanjing (Classic of Difficulties), Difficulty 61 [in classical Chinese]. Wikisource.
- Zhao C, Li GZ, Li F, Wang Z, Liu C. Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis for Facial Complexion in Traditional Chinese Medicine. BioMed Research International 2014;2014:207589.
- Lingshu, chapter 4 [in classical Chinese]. Siku Quanshu edition, Wikisource.
- Lingshu, chapter 49, Wu Se (Five Colours) [in classical Chinese]. Siku Quanshu edition, Wikisource.
- Suwen, chapter 17 [in classical Chinese]. Wikisource.
- Wellcome Collection. Chinese woodcut face chart, edition of 1726. Work fe95wk9r.
- Wellcome Collection. Face chart from Wang Shuhe Maijue, edition of 1624. Work s5vggx4w.
- Fraussen M. Chinese Face Reading. International College of Oriental Medicine, East Grinstead.
- Vogt S. Semiotics of Human Body and Character: Aristotle’s Logical Foundation of Physiognomics. Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Boston.
- U.S. National Library of Medicine. Historical Anatomies on the Web: Giambattista della Porta, De humana physiognomonia.
- Bibliothèque nationale de France. Lavater JC. Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntniss und Menschenliebe. Leipzig und Winterthur; 1775 to 1778.
This article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. The practice described is a traditional observation method. Nothing here is intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, or to replace evaluation by a licensed healthcare provider. Please consult a qualified professional regarding your health. English renderings of the Chinese classics are our own.
Images: featured painting, Leonardo da Vinci, Ginevra de’ Benci, about 1474 to 1478. National Gallery of Art, Washington, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. In-article images credited in their captions.