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Home » Feature » Art and Culture

Thangkas find new admirers all across China

By Ludovic Ehret | November 4, 2016, Friday | Print Edition

HER eyes riveted to the canvas, Wulan meticulously applies color to an image of the Buddha, using pigments made of crushed pearls, turquoise and agate.

The 34-year-old is one of dozens of students at a school in Lhasa learning the medieval Tibetan art of “thangka” — minutely detailed paintings depicting Buddhist deities or symbols, usually on cotton canvas or silk scrolls.

But she is not Tibetan. Ethnically Mongol, she moved 2,500 kilometers to embark on seven years of studies.

Tibet’s traditional religious art is now increasingly being embraced by outsiders — including from Han ethnic majority — as both buyers and producers.

“Thangkas are captivating a growing number of people,” said Wulan. “Traditional cultures are more and more recognized in China, which wasn’t always the case during the economic boom.”

Intangible cultural heritage

In their heyday centuries ago, thangkas had patrons and practitioners in Nepal, Bhutan, China’s Tibet and northern India, and in 2009, UNESCO added them to its list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity, calling them “an integral part of the artistic life of people” on the Tibetan plateau.

Now there are more than 100 apprentices — including some Han Chinese — at Wulan’s Danba Raodan school, who get free tuition in return for helping their teachers with their paintings. The students spend 10 hours every day learning how to trace figures in pencil, wield delicate paintbrushes and apply pigment to canvas.

The revival comes after a turbulent past in the 1960s when the “cultural revolution” (1966-76) was underway.

“Beyond the destruction of artworks and monasteries ransacked, a lot of the expertise was lost. Many teachers were in prison and could not train young people,” said Amy Heller, an art historian based in Switzerland.

“Even after the ‘cultural revolution,’ it was difficult.”

In 2014, Chinese tycoon Liu Yiqian paid a record US$45 million for a 15th-century thangka tapestry believed to have been a gift from a Chinese emperor to a Tibetan Buddhist leader.

At the time, Liu said: “If you look at it from the perspective of diplomacy in ancient China, it is ... of great importance, because 600 years ago Tibet was a part of China already.”

Once only made by artisans attached to Buddhist temples and monasteries and painstakingly produced according to strict rules, the creation of thangkas is now open to anyone passionate about the art.

The vast majority of the Danba Raodan students are still Tibetans, but when it opened its doors in 1980 there were only 20 thangka painters in Lhasa, said its director Tenzin Phuntsok, who inherited it from his father.

“Today there are a thousand. And nationally, about 10,000,” he said.

Each painting requires between one month to three years of work, depending on its size and complexity.

And while thangkas were traditionally offered to monasteries or sold to Tibetan families, the art has now secured a new, lucrative audience — Chinese collectors.

“They come from the big cities of Beijing and Shanghai, and are becoming more numerous,” said Tenzin Phuntsok.

As interest grows, prices have soared, rising 10 percent a year, according to the Tiantangwu gallery in Beijing.

“The thangka of a novice teacher is already worth several thousand euros,” added the director, whose own works sell for nearly 200,000 yuan (US$30,000).

The older generation of painters “do not necessarily welcome this commercialization,” acknowledged the 31-year-old, but said: “As a young person, I find it inevitable. The main thing is to find a balance between the tradition and the market.”

Some specialists warn of wider risks.

After decades of frantic economic growth and materialism, “Chinese sense a need to fill a spiritual hole with religion,” said Wang Jingyi, professor of art at Taiwan Normal University in Taipei and market analyst.

“Many are drawn to Tibetan Buddhism, which has more colorful art than what you find elsewhere in China. However, these are religious items,” he said. “If they are too commercialized, they will lose their religious identity.”

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