The enormous success of the Mask series has catapulted Zeng Fanzhi to the ranks of the great masters of Chinese art history. The portraits reflected the hidden psychological distress of a populace that was undergoing rapid economic and social changes. The masks not only reveal the doubts and uncertainty of a generation but the artist's own struggle to cope with a world that is full of contradictions. The ten year journey of the Mask series saw Zeng matured and evolved into the artist he is today.

This development is clear in one of the very last works the artist has created within the Mask Series, Sky, which is a drawing created with color pencil, a medium that is rare in Zeng's oeuvre. Here, two figures wearing masks are atop a hill in a backdrop of grand landscape of soft hues of blues and pinks, reminiscent of Rothko's paintings. The style of the later period of the Mask Series has been noted by the art critic Li Xianting, "Zeng Fanzhi's figures have learned to relax." Indeed, all the tension of the psyche and its manifestations in the flesh has softened in the drawing. The two figures in the painting seem to have reconciled individuality and their public faces, calmly posing for the world to see.