The Painting Of The Tibetan Thangka

A Thangka is a painted or embroidered banner, which is hung in a monastery or a family altar, then it is carried by lamas in ceremonial processions. In Tibetan, the word than means flat, and the suffix ka stands for painting.

The Thangka is a type of painting that is done on a flat surface, but can be rolled up when it is not required for display. The most common shape of a Thangka is an upright rectangular form. However, you can also find horizontal oblong banners that were influenced by the format of Chinese horizontal hand scrolls.

As far as the techniques involved and the materials used, the thangkas can be grouped into several categories, which are divided into two broad categories. The first category is when it is painted, which is called bris-than in Tibetan. The second category is made of silk, either by weaving or with embroidery called gos-than. The painted thangkas are then divided into five categories. These categories are those that have different colors in the background, a gold background, red background, black background, or whose outlines are printed on cotton support and then touched up with colors.

Thangkas are painted on cotton canvas with water soluble pigments, both mineral and organic, tempered with a herb and glue solution. The entire process demands great mastery over the drawing and perfect understanding of iconometric principles. The execution of a Thangka painting is then divided into six steps, which are the preparation of the painting surface, the drawing, the application of color, the shading, the outlining, and the finished details.

Tibetan painters would pay a great great amount for the preparation of the painting surface, since Thangka paintings are to be rolled up for storage then unrolled for display. Any sort of defect due to neglect, may cause cracks or make the paint peel off. A piece of cotton cloth of slightly open weave is stitched on to a narrow wooden frame along all its four sides.

This lightly framed cotton is then tightly stretched over a larger wooden frame or stretcher with a stout thread by a system of crisscross lacing. After the cloth has been set up in the frame it is then treated from both the front and back with a thin layer of gesso, which is made up of glue and zinc oxide. The canvas is then burnished on both sides with a stone or conch shell to produce a smooth and lustrous surface.

Prior to sketching the different parts of the composition, there are eight major lines of orientation that need to be drawn, which include a central perpendicular, two diagonals, a horizontal and four outer borders. Now with charcoal or graphite the rough drawing of the deity in full accordance with the canonical proportions is delineated. Within a given composition, the center stage is invariably occupied by the principal personage, while all acolytes and attendants are greatly reduced in size to further emphasize the majesty and enormity of the central figure.

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