Thangka Repair Records

by Chang Xiaocheng

Thangka is a unique painting art rooted in Tibetan culture. According to Buddhist cultural classics and Tibetan folk customs， painters use mineral pigments to create dazzling colors accumulated by painting layer upon layer. Distinctive and scientific proportions of paint are used on a carefully polished canvas. Imagery involves Tibetan history， politics， society， and culture， so the works serve as a cultural bellwether as time goes on.

In the spring of 2014 when the Thangka Painting Academy in Qamdo City， southwestern Chinas Tibet Autonomous Region， was established， I recruited a group of more than 30 excellent thangka painters to restore and repaint 100 high-quality thangka works. Thangka restoration and repainting takes a lot more than copying original works. To re-create a thangka masterpiece with academic and educational value， one must research the thread of thangka history and select representative works for one-on-one manual restoration.

To better understand thangka painting， we visited almost every major library in Tibet and collected an enormous amount of information on thangka from the Palace Museum and the National Library in Beijing. We also visited every major temple in Qamdo and took photos of every excellent thangka painting. From thangka murals spanning an entire temple to the minute details of each work， the painters measured them carefully with rulers for over 10 hours a day to record their data. The process not only gave our painters a deeper understanding of thangka painting， but also an increasingly firm belief in cultural protection.

A year later， the sketches carefully traced by the painters were finally completed. Many experts including Tibetan art masters Han Shuli and Yu Youxin and thangka masters Danba Raodan and Norbu Sithar inspected and modified the sketches. Among them， Karma Delek， an 80-year-old national intangible cultural heritage inheritor of “Karma Gardri style，” or“Encampment style，” peered through both his eyeglasses and a handheld magnifying glass. He carefully measured every detail with a ruler and personally corrected the manuscript. “Seeing young people dedicated to cultural inheritance urges me to contribute my remaining energy，” he said.

In the autumn of 2016， after nearly three years of efforts， we finally completed the restoration of 100 thangka paintings and held an exhibition of the works. Experts unanimously certified all 100 works as high-quality. Afterwards， we documented the works as well as related thangka painting skills and historical context for other thangka artists to study. We want them to learn about the traits of quality works and the essence of thangka painting. Young artists will gradually realize that thangka is not only about tracing works， but also about inheriting its essence and preserving its skills.

As time passed， I continued pondering what was most important for the development of thangka. We need to seriously study and absorb the essence of traditional culture to ensure thangka continues shining well into the future. Traditional thangka paintings are largely about religious content， but today the art has developed into a record of social life and the progress of the times. One after another， thangka works have beamed around the country and the world. Thangka painting companies and inheritance bases are also mushrooming， and our confidence in the inheritance and protection of traditional culture is becoming stronger day by day.