Tibetan Thangka
01 · Historical Records
The Karma Gadri school is one of the three great schools of Tibetan thangka painting (the Mentang school, the Khyenle school, and the Karma Gadri school). It is popular in eastern Tibet, centered on Dege in Garze, Sichuan, and Chamdo in Tibet. According to tradition, it was founded in the 16th century by the living Buddha Namkha Tashi and takes its name from the great dharma assembly of the Karmapa; it is also rendered as the 'Karma Gachi' school and is often abbreviated to the Gazi school.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The stylistic sources of the Karma Gadri school are fairly complex: its founder, the living Buddha Namkha Tashi, took South Asian bronze Buddha images in the Indian style as his models and was deeply influenced by the great Mentang painting master Gadan Xiajueba·Yejue Pengde. The 8th Karmapa living Buddha, Mikyo Dorje, a contemporary of Namkha Tashi, summed up the experience of his predecessors together with his own and composed the 'Sun Mirror of Line Standards' (Xianzhun Taiyang Mingjing), laying the theoretical foundation of the Gazi school. Later, the 10th Karmapa, Choying Dorje, discovered the subtle merits of Han Chinese ruled-line (jiehua) painting and blue-and-green landscape techniques in a set of silk arhat thangkas, and began to paint thangkas in the fine-brush, heavy-color manner. His works have a pronounced Han Chinese style, setting them apart from the Mentang and Khyenle schools of U-Tsang. After Namkha Tashi, two further painters carried on the Gazi style: one was Queji Zhaxi, celebrated for his blue-and-green coloring; the other was Gaxu Karma Zhaxi, known for his originality and innovation. Together with Namkha Tashi, they are celebrated as the 'Three Zhaxis of the Gazi school'. After the 'Three Zhaxis of the Gazi school', the miniature thangkas of the master Langkajie of Luhuo in Kham were regarded as unmatched marvels, while the printing blocks left by the master Pubu Zeren of Dege — hailed as an incarnation of Vishvakarman, the deity of craftsmanship — and preserved in the Dege Sutra Printing Institute have become virtually the models for the Gazi school. The lineage of the Gazi school is transmitted very clearly, and celebrated masters have appeared in every generation. The most striking characteristic of the Gazi school is its heavy, dense application of color and strong contrasts, producing sumptuous, magnificent images; over several centuries it gradually developed a distinctive set of techniques for making and using pigments. In its creative work, white, red, yellow, blue, and green serve as the parent colors, from which 9 major and 32 intermediate color families can be mixed, in turn yielding 158 minor shades. The use of gold is a major feature of Tibetan Buddhist painting, since employing gold is regarded as the most sacred offering to the Buddhas and deities. The Gazi school possesses consummate skills in preparing gold size and in applying, burnishing, outlining, engraving, and dyeing gold. Gold can be divided into many warm and cool variations; on a black ground, gold lines can articulate more than ten different levels of effect; and over large areas of applied gold, various lines can be pressed out with a pen made of nine-eyed stone, producing the so-called 'gemstone lines'. Because thangka production involves complex procedures, high costs, and exacting methods, and because the skills have long been passed down from master to apprentice by word of mouth, the sustaining force of transmission is very weak and easily broken.
The three Tashi of the Karma Gardri
After Namkha Tashi, Chökyi Tashi, famed for blue-green colouring, and Gakshök Karma Tashi, famed for invention, carried on the style and are honoured with the founder as the three Tashi of the school.
The Sun Mirror of Lineal Proportion
The painting treatise compiled by the eighth Karmapa, Mikyö Dorje, from his teachers' experience and his own, which together with Namkha Tashi's practice laid the theoretical basis of the school.
Nine, thirty-two and a hundred and fifty-eight hues
Taking white, red, yellow, blue and green as mother colours, the school mixes nine main, thirty-two middle and a hundred and fifty-eight minor hues, the basis of its special pigment technique.
Jewel lines
The school commands a whole technique of gold — grinding, laying, burnishing, outlining, engraving and dyeing — grading gold into many warm and cool tones and pressing lines into broad gilding with a pen of nine-eyed agate, the so-called jewel lines.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
In the transmission of the school, branches arose through geographic ties and master-disciple relationships, leading to stylistic changes and giving rise to the 'Old Gazi school' and the 'New Gazi school'.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Tibetan Thangka · Tibetan Thangka · Tibetan Thangka · Tibetan Thangka · Tibetan Thangka · Tibetan Thangka · Tibetan Thangka · Tibetan Thangka · Tibetan Thangka · Tibetan Thangka · Tibetan Thangka · Tibetan Thangka · Tibetan Thangka · Tibetan Thangka.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
In recent years, many folk painters have replaced traditional pigments with inexpensive modern synthetic colors, dealing a severe blow to traditional thangka painting. Today, the methods of making natural traditional pigments and the techniques for using them face the danger of being lost, the traditional painting style of the Gazi school is itself changing, and the school urgently needs protection and rescue. Yandeng Zeren (official archive record of the associated inheritor): Male, Tibetan, born in March 1954, from Kangding City, Sichuan. Senior lecturer at the Sichuan Tibetan School. Through years of diligent study, he mastered the techniques of painting thangkas in the Karma Gadri style. He served as artistic director and painter for the 'Thousand Thangkas of Gesar' project in Garze Prefecture, Sichuan, and worked on the cover design of the Chinese Tripitaka; his publications include the school textbook 'Scattered Remarks on the Science of Craftsmanship' (Gongqiaoming Sishu) and other scholarly works. His representative works include Shakyamuni, the Snow-Mountain Crystal Kingdom, and the Medicine Buddha. Representative inheritor of Tibetan Thangka (Karma Gadri School), an intangible cultural heritage project of the fourth national-level batch. Since 1984 he has taught the specialty of Tibetan folk arts and crafts at the Sichuan Tibetan School, training more than seven hundred professionals in succession, and using his spare time to train more than three hundred people in thangka painting, clay sculpture, and carving. La Meng (official archive record of the associated inheritor): Male, Tibetan, born in August 1970, from Sertar County, Sichuan. Master of Arts and Crafts of Sichuan Province. He has systematically mastered the painting techniques of the Karma Gadri school and has produced a substantial body of creative work. He participated in the creation of the 'Thousand Thangkas of Gesar'; his representative work 'Gesar Displays His Powers' has been widely disseminated in Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, and other places and is highly influential. Representative inheritor of Tibetan Thangka (Karma Gadri School), an intangible cultural heritage project of the fifth national-level batch. Over the years he has trained more than a thousand disciples in succession, spread across Chamdo City in Tibet, Golog Prefecture in Qinghai, Gannan Prefecture in Gansu, and the Garze and Aba prefectures of Sichuan. Many of his disciples have attained proficiency, the most outstanding being his son Luowu Dorje and his disciple Silang Zeren.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Danbaraodan 01-0063
- Gesangcidan 01-0064
- Yandengzeren 04-1748
- Luobusida 04-1749
- Xirebu 04-1750
- Jiumai 04-1751
- Lameng 05-2581
- Cirenluobu 05-2582
- Zhaxi 05-2583
- Gade 05-2584
- Mimaciren 05-2585
- Jiaobajiabu 05-2586
- Qujiu
- Gesang
- Nima
- Tudengweise
- Gamadanzeng
- Luozhubasong
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。