By ZHAO Yan

(Journalists of China Information Service)

(ECNS) — Thangka, as soon as known as “Oriental Oil Portray” within the West, has been handed down on Tibet’s snowy plateau for greater than 1,000 years. This artwork type, focuses on drawing scenes inside sq. inches. Thangka may be very near Western oil portray in its processes, with its creative kinds and strategies influenced not solely by Indian and Nepalese portray kinds, but additionally deeply by Tang Dynasty portray kinds and panorama portray within the Central Plains. Liu Yang, an affiliate professor in Tibet College’s School of Artwork, not too long ago gave China Information Service’s East-West Quest an unique interview.

China Information Service: Why is thangka, which is stuffed with thriller, broadly sought-after by collectors?

Liu: Thangka is mysterious as a result of folks don’t know sufficient about it. It’s divided into hand-painted and non-hand-painted. Hand-painted thangka is definitely a scroll portray with agate, coral, cinnabar and different pure treasured minerals as pigments, painted on material curtains and framed with coloured satin. The theme is especially faith, involving historical past, politics, economic system, tradition, folklore, secular life and different fields, and thus thangka known as the “encyclopedia of Tibetan Tradition.”

Conventional thangka integrates all of Tibetan tradition, together with historical past, panorama, tradition, Tibetan medication, astronomy, the calendar, and many others. As a concrete embodiment of conventional skillful craftsmanship [technology], it has excessive creative appreciation worth and assortment worth.

After thangka was chosen for on China’s Nationwide Intangible Cultural Heritage Listing in 2006, it was extra sought-after by amateurs in China and overseas. In 2014, Liu Yiqian, a Chinese language collector, purchased an embroidered thangka of the Emperor Yongle within the Ming Dynasty for HKD 348 million [$44.3 million], a document for the public sale quantity of thangka to this point, making this artwork type rapidly turn out to be the main focus of consideration.

Thangka portray, some of the distinctive sorts of Chinese language portray, can also be some of the essential and distinctive portray kinds in Tibet. Right now, folks can see many thangka cultural relics with a historical past of hundreds of years within the Potala Palace, the Tibet Museum or temples with their colours nonetheless vivid and dazzling.

Why does thangka not fade simply? Thangka has a singular aspect in work everywhere in the world: it’s created from gold, silver and different treasured stones, all of which come from pure vegetation and minerals. As well as, the painter’s color-matching ratio, coloring strategies and different strategies make its pigments very agency, they usually don’t fall off simply. As well as, the preservation technique can also be essential. Folks in Tibet assume that providing thangka may be very sacred, and they’re very cautious in retaining it. The scroll is straightforward to hold, which may be very appropriate for folks in Tibet, who lived a nomadic life in historic occasions. It’s taken out and displayed on the particular events solely.

CNS: Westerners as soon as known as thangka “Oriental Oil Portray.” What’s the distinction between its creative expression and oil portray?

Liu: Thangka’s type of expression and portray course of are very shut to grease portray. For instance, earlier than thangka portray, it’s essential to stretch, glue and polish the canvas. When making drafts, it’s obligatory to make use of charcoal strips or pencils to stipulate traces on canvas and colour the again. Therefore, some Westerners who had simply come into contact with thangka known as thangka “Oriental Oil Portray.”

Thangka has totally different aesthetic traits from conventional Chinese language portray and oil portray, with not solely primary aesthetics of picture modeling, but additionally symbolism and aestheticism.

It’s well-known that Anduo Qiangba, a well-known Tibetan thangka painter in Tibet within the twentieth century, was the primary chairman of the Artists Affiliation of the Tibet Autonomous Area. Adhering to the thick, tremendous and beautiful fashion of thangka artwork in Tibet and drawing classes from the essence of Western college of lifelike portray, he created a singular Tibetan conventional lifelike portray, ushering in a brand new chapter within the innovation and growth of Tibetan conventional portray.

He usually painted goddesses, most frequently Inexperienced Tara. The goddess picture he created not solely exhibits the creative traits of the Western Renaissance but additionally integrates the understanding. Anduo believed that to develop Tibetan portray artwork, it’s obligatory to interrupt by means of the restrictions of conventional Buddha portray. In any other case, it could solely stand nonetheless. He boldly reformed the proportion and expression strategies of Sakyamuni and Tara depicted in his works, making the statues and expressions of Buddha and Tara extra pure and consistent with fashionable aesthetic style.

CNS: How does thangka witness the historical past of Sino-Tibetan exchanges? How do its portray parts work together with conventional Chinese language portray to type its personal traits?

Liu: Within the historical past of Chinese language civilization, all ethnic teams have made widespread progress and growth by means of exchanges, communication and mixing. The inheritance and growth of thangka have absorbed the essence of all ethnic cultures.

When it comes to creative type, thangka expertise are influenced by Tang Dynasty portray fashion. The inexperienced panorama fashion of the Central Plains is constantly built-in into thangka work. Later, thangka additionally absorbed many guidelines and strategies of mainland panorama portray and conventional Chinese language lifelike portray. For instance, the clouds within the sky embrace; the rocks on the bottom rise and fall; the Bodhisattva in heaven sit on floating clouds, and the characters on the earth stroll within the inexperienced panorama, thus making the general format vigorous and layered. “Goddess,” a thangka scroll portray from the 14th century, is the earliest current portray created by utilizing Chinese language panorama portray strategies in an all-around approach. Amongst them, turquoise rocks, stylized clouds and dense leaves are clearly impressed by Chinese language fashion, with the spatial composition stage being very coherent.

Inland tradition and Tibetan tradition are mutually built-in. As early because the Tubo Dynasty, Confucius’s fame unfold far and huge to Tibet, together with the cultural exchanges between the Tang Dynasty and the Tubo Dynasty, and was acknowledged by Tibetan folks. In thangka’s “God Turns into Confucius Wang (A Youngster with Extraordinary Energy)” within the Qing Dynasty, Confucius, as an ethical sage of Confucianism, was remodeled by Tibetan folks right into a tribute Jeb [King in Tibet] of “saint, divinity and king.” In Tibetan Buddhism, Jeb is thought to be a disciple or incarnation of Manjusri. Though the 2 photos are totally different bodily, the picture of Confucius is recognized and remodeled based mostly on the wants of the cultural custom of the Tibetan nation and their creativeness.

This additionally exhibits the affect of Central Plains tradition on thangka content material in historical past. As a Tibetan encyclopedia, thangka information and spreads by means of its drawings. It’s a witness to the cultural alternate and integration between China and Tibet. From the angle of the historic course of, Tibetan tradition has been an inseparable and essential a part of Chinese language tradition since historic occasions. Particularly earlier than it was influenced by Buddhism, Tibetan tradition was appropriate with Central Plains tradition in lots of fields.

Amongst them, there are a lot of biographies associated to Songtsen Gampo, and the Biography of Songtsen Gampo, which exists within the Potala Palace, depicts intimately the story of Songtsen Gampo proposing to Princess Wencheng and constructing Jokhang Temple. After the temple’s completion, Songtsen Gampo and Princess Wencheng personally planted willow timber exterior the temple gate; that’s the well-known “Willow of the Tang Dynasty.” Tibetan folks love this willow tree very a lot, relating to it as a token of the closeness of Tibetan and Chinese language folks, and deify it. It’s mentioned that the tree was born from the hair of the statue of Sakyamuni, which Princess Wencheng dropped at Tubo. This thangka clearly information “The Willow of the Tang Dynasty” and “Tang-Tibetan Alliance Pill,” which can also be a witness to the pleasant exchanges between China and Tibet.

CNS: Now thangka portray has entered the classroom and has a whole inheritance system. Within the strategy of inheritance and innovation, what different fashionable expressions are there in thangka?

Liu: The inheritance of conventional Tibetan thangka artwork is principally a household and master-apprentice sample, which has lasted for hundreds of years. Because the finish of final century, thangka artwork schooling has formally entered the school rooms of schools and universities in Tibet, merging with the fashionable schooling mode. Tibet College was the primary college in China to supply a thangka main, and its coaching stage for college kids has progressively transitioned from junior school and undergraduate to postgraduate and doctoral college students.

These days, thangka artwork instruction has additionally been launched into middle-school artwork lessons, which is a brand-new try and pioneering enterprise. It might probably allow college students to come across and perceive conventional Tibetan artwork as quickly as doable and broaden the considering of creative creation, thus enjoying a constructive function in enhancing college students’ complete creative capacity.

The mixing of cultures has introduced innovation and growth. Innovating thangka is a problem to each artist. By way of daring creativeness and a free mixture of thangka parts, the brand new life and customs in Tibet are expressed by utilizing varied expressive expertise of thangka portray and extremely generalized creative strategies, thus forming a singular creative fashion by which reality, magnificence and goodness are ubiquitous, which we name “new thangka.”

The “new thangka” is conventional and fashionable, instructive for the current and the longer term. Combining artwork schooling with folks artwork and in search of the combination of people artwork, modern artwork and actual life is a vital technique to promote the event of thangka schooling. Right now, folks ought to inherit the cultural heritage left by their ancestors extra actively, with a broader thoughts and diversified concepts.

Telling the Tibetan story to the world in fashionable language exhibits cross-cultural significance. Underneath the idea of nice artwork, passing down the spirit of thangka artwork, retaining tempo with the occasions, altering the ideas and strategies of artwork schooling, specializing in communication and dialogue, and actively finishing up instructional innovation can lay the inspiration for thangka artwork to rise to the height of the world artwork.

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(Translated by CHEN Lengthy)