Thangka Paiting Art of Tibetan Ethnic Group

Thangka is transliteration of Tibetan, and it means a kind of scroll cloth painting, which can be hung up. It is also called “scroll Buddhist painting” and “Zang cloth painting”, and it is a peculiar painting of the Tibetan Buddhism. Religious figures, historical events and doctrines are main describing targets, and Thangka is usually hung in temples and farmhouses. When making it, they select linen cloth and rough woolen cloth as background, and silk and satin are used as background of some precious ones. Flaxen threads are sewed at edge of the background cloth, and the cloth is stretched tightly on specially made wood frame. They smear a kind of paste mixed with animal size and talcum powder on the cloth and use mussel shell to scrape the paste to make it flat and smooth. Then it can be used to paint after the cloth becomes dry thoroughly. After painting, they take it off from the wood frame, mount it with brocade and add a scroll to it. The width of different paintings is different. Small ones are only several cuns wide, and big ones are tens of meters wide. For example, the giant Thangka kept in the Potala Palace is more than 50 meters long. There are a great variety of Thangkas, such as embroidered Thangka, appliqu¨¦ Thangka, tapestried (a type of weaving done in fine silks and gold threads by the tapestry method) Thangka, painted Thangka, Thangka with silk-woven picture, and Thangka with piled embroidery. The most characteristic is the Tangka with “piled embroidery”. It is composed of carefully chosen brocade with different colors and designs. All the threads sewed on the cloth are made by tangling colored silk and horse tail hair. Some are partly inlaid with jewelry, and the technology is very complicated and exquisite. This excellent artwork composed organically of jewelry and piled embroidery is quite rare treasure in traditional Thangka art.