Tibetan Thangka
01 · Historical Records
The Khyenri school was practiced in Tsang (western Tibet) and the Shannan area after the mid-15th century; its founder was Gonggar Gangdru Khyenri Chemu.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
From childhood he loved art; building on traditional Tibetan Nepalese-style painting, he absorbed painting techniques from the Han regions of the Central Plains, India, and elsewhere, founding the Khyenri school. The emergence of the Khyenri and Mentang schools put an end to the Nepalese painting style previously practiced in U-Tsang. The Khyenri school retains the Tibetan Nepalese painting characteristic of large central figures in composition, but in landscape representation it began to absorb the painting style of the Han regions; it is especially skilled at depicting wrathful figures with a masculine beauty, executed with superb brilliance. The founder of the Khyenri school, Gonggar Gangdru Khyenri Chemu, painted for many years in the Gonggar and Sakya areas, and his disciples formed the earliest community of transmitters of the Khyenri school. Khyenri school figures have a strong sense of realism; drapery lines are mostly drawn with the iron-wire technique, and the coloring favors rich, intense reds and blues; the flames and curling beards of wrathful dharmapalas are rendered with particular brilliance. The Khyenri school coexisted with the Mentang school in U-Tsang; the style resulting from the fusion of the two was later called "Khyen-Mentang" (Mianqin) and became the mainstream method of Tibetan temple mural painting after the 15th century.
Gongkar Gongdun Khyentse Chenmo
Founder of the school: devoted to art from childhood, he absorbed Han Chinese and Indian techniques into the traditional Nepalese manner and founded the Khyentse style in the mid-fifteenth century in Tsang and Lhoka.
The martial beauty of the wrathful deities
The school keeps the large central deity of Nepalese composition but takes up Han landscape conventions and excels above all at wrathful figures, whose martial beauty it renders superbly.
Ending the Nepalese manner
With the rise of the Khyentse and Menthang schools the earlier Nepalese manner that had dominated Tsang came to an end, and a native Tibetan style was established.
Monastic murals of Tsang and Lhoka
The school worked chiefly in monastic murals and scroll paintings, leaving many works in the monasteries of Gyantse, Sakya and Gongkar and forming one of the two roots of later Tsang mural painting.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Khyenri school takes the Shigatse and Shannan areas of Tsang (western Tibet) as its center of distribution; its style can be seen in the temple murals and thangkas of Gyantse, Sakya, Gonggar, and other places.
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
Danba Raodan (related inheritor, official archive record): male, Tibetan, born in 1941, from Tibet. In order to learn about Buddhism, he entered the Sera Mahayana College at the age of fifteen, where he systematically studied logic (pramana), Buddhist doctrine, and painting theory. In the 1980s he was transferred to the Gesar Research Office of the Tibet Normal College, where he painted a large number of color illustrations with a strong Tibetan painting character for the Epic of King Gesar. The thangkas he painted are strictly canonical, with delicate, magnificent coloring in which azurite blue and malachite green are especially prominent. His main representative works include Great Wrathful Vajra (Yamantaka), The Earth, Cloth-Bag Monk, and Palden Lhamo. Gesang Cidan (related inheritor, official archive record): male, Tibetan, born in 1958, from Tibet. From 1971 to 1974 he took part in the mural restoration project at the Jokhang Temple, studying under numerous experts in Tibetan traditional painting the techniques of restoring and painting ancient Tibetan murals, the methods of preparing Tibetan painting pigments, and traditional Tibetan arts and crafts techniques. In 1981 he was admitted to the undergraduate fine arts class of the Department of Letters and Physical Education at the Tibet Normal College, but was later forced to drop out for reasons beyond his control. In 1983 he began to receive painstaking guidance from Professor Danba Raodan, systematically studying traditional Tibetan fine art techniques and art history and theory. He emphasizes the use of line, with lively, richly varied coloring; his representative works include Lotus-Net Avalokitesvara, Dharmapala, and the Mandala of the Eight Auspicious Symbols.
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)
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