The golden dome of the Temple of The Eight States
The light rain was pouring down, and the cold was breeding everywhere in Ganzidege, Sichuan. We were going to visit the teacher who made the Tibetan paper, but the car circled around the new Khampa Cultural Expo Park and couldn't find it. The local guide girl, Hakuba, told us that many traditional craft workshops are concentrated here, and it has been regarded as a new landmark of Derge, but at the moment it seems that there are few people.
Seeing that the door of an exhibition hall was half hidden, we immediately stopped the car and asked if we could visit, and the voice inside was full of breath, like coming from between the valleys: Yes, come in——
On the first floor of the empty room, in the corner, a young painter sat in front of three big cards, a stove on the carpet, a pot of butter tea was warmed, the radio rustled with programs, and the thangka details were slowly being filled.
Thangka is a form of painting in Tibetan culture, the most common being religious paintings of Buddha, so for Tibetans who believe in Buddhism, thangkas are their moving temples. During the nomadic period, wherever you stay, you will set up tents and altars, and then these satin-framed scroll paintings will be unfolded and hung, and there will be gods three feet above their heads.
"I've always believed, and increasingly believed, that thangkas should be more valuable without religion." The young painter's name is Yu Rong Du, and everyone is used to calling him Dorji, "Last time a teacher said to me, Dorji, you said this, I also have a new understanding of Thangka, it will not only be China, but also a strong stroke in the history of world art." ”
Thangka leaves religion, and the meaning of the thangka is that it can be changed from the content level, from Buddha statues and historical figures to various star portraits, scenes or modern life scenes. The experience of traveling to Beijing in 2014 for a sketching class made him realize that the past was too closed to himself, "Now there are a lot of thangka innovations, but the direction is wrong." Another teacher told me that many thangkas now simply replace the background of the sacred beasts with pandas, crows, and puppies, which is not a match. The tradition is already good, just put it there, we can do the innovation of the subject matter - of course, from an artistic point of view, formal occasions do not appear - such as painting Manjushri Bodhisattva, we can draw a child in front of the serious homework, drawing a very contemporary feeling. "In 2016, at a thangka exhibition in Hong Kong, young painters drew superheroes such as Spider-Man and Iron Man in the thangka.
But what is a "thangka" that changes such a core content?
"It's its canvas and its paint." The sniffles said. From the time he found out he liked to draw in elementary school, to studying with his father, the Karma Kachi painters— using pure white silk or cotton cloth as canvas, earth, stone, water, fire, wood, grass, flowers, bone, and precious stones, including gold, pearls, etc., which reached 85%-97% purity, he always thought that thangka was the best painting in the world, complex, delicate, sacred, "and other paintings could not be seen." ”
But the more perfect the thangka, the more it made him feel powerless, and in any case, he could no longer surpass his predecessors, as if he had seen his own end.
"That's a lot to say today." The velvet swallowing weng simply stopped the work at hand, and we simply stopped looking for hidden paper.
He led us to see the largest thangka replica in the pavilion, an innovative painting of "Datong" that he and his colleagues created, and their practice of their own ideas. Unlike the main characters that are usually depicted in the center, the thangka in front of the eyes depicts a large area of scenery, and there are small people scattered between the mountains, rivers, lakes and seas, coexisting Chinese and Western mythological and historical figures. There is no center, the upper left corner of the Nuwa is refining stones to make up for the heavens, the bottom eight immortals across the sea each show their miraculous powers, Confucius stretched out his hands to welcome Jesus across the sea.
This practice seems a bit outrageous, so it is also controversial among painters.
"It's an innovative form, there may be some good development in art, but it's only short-lived, it's for a while." The painter Chimi Dorjee sat in a chair in his living room, holding a snuff bottle in his hand, and when the painting was out of inspiration, he inhaled a few snuffs.
Knowing that Derg lived with many reputable painters, we found one of them, Chimi Dorji.
Rising up the narrow alleys along the street, his Midoji family is at the top of a crowded Tibetan-style house. In 2000, he and his family moved from Ba bang to Derg – for their children to go to school – and bought the house and began to design the paintings in the house himself. Nowadays, the Buddhist hall, the living room, and the studio are well organized, and several apprentices practice silently in the studio, occasionally leaning out from behind the drawing board to see what we are talking about.
When I first moved in, the studio and living room had a good view, and I could see the local landmark, the stately Derg Printing House, until a few years ago, when a hotel was flat on the ground and ruined the view.
Knowing that Qimei Dorjee had also seen the painting of Ongdu, I asked him how he felt, and he asked, what do you think?
"It seems that the form and content are not well unified..." I am a layman, just talking nonsense.
"He's very good at painting, including some brush strokes, but I think he's a little bit out of touch with traditional theory." At the age of 13, Qimei Dorji began to study with his uncle and another painter, then painted for the temple for 10 years, and then went to Chengdu to create for 12 years for thangka lovers and collectors. ”
His Midoji paid more respect for Buddhism and the thangka painting rules formulated by his predecessors, which is what he called the traditional theory. Thangka is not only a painting, but also "an object of visualization, useful for practice", so he can not recognize any re-creation involving the Buddha statue itself, and although the technique is important, the most important thing is "the painter himself, his heart and his character, the texts mention to meet certain standards, such as sufficient self-discipline and so on."
For three years, Chimi Dorjee did not paint, because he was seriously ill and "could not paint when he was angry or sad, or when he was particularly happy and could not calm down." So I read all day and picked up my pen when I recovered. The series of thangkas he is creating today is based on a small picture book passed down to him by his uncle, and the yellowed Tibetan paper is full of drafts, which is roughly speculated to have some history.
His mentors Tashi (right) and Dava Rongbo
Chimedoji displays a three-hundred-year-old thangka album
Babang Damagala Art School, tashi Dorjee's apprentice in drawing thangkas
Tashi Dorjee is mentoring students
We don't know how to talk about Ding Zhen, the most well-known Tibetan young man in recent years, because a short video became popular on the Internet. He asked Ding Zhen how he was, and a few young apprentices sneaked their heads out from behind the drawing board, and I said that everyone liked him.
"Freedom." Chimi Dorji took a snuff and said that freedom is an important criterion for happiness and unhappiness.
After leaving Derg, we decided to go to the Eight States Temple. One is that the precious murals and thangkas preserved there are representatives of Tibetan painting in Kham (the Karma Kachi School originated from this), and the other is that The younger brother of The White Horse, Qimei Zeren, studied at the Babang Monastery Buddhist Academy and stopped by to find him.
The Temple of The Eight States is 800 meters above sea level, and the water vapor is thick. The students of the Buddhist College wore short sleeves or simply a dark red robe and a long, wide-sleeved robe. When She was a child, she saw the lama dress like that, and felt very comfortable, so after finishing junior high school, she came to renunciation, read the five-year sutra, and was about to enter the retreat stage, which was three years, three months and three days, meditating and chanting every day, unable to contact the outside world. If a family member comes to visit, they need to meet across a glass, and the words must be communicated back and forth by a third person.
"If you close the door, you can't be vulgar anymore, otherwise it will be very humiliating." Qimei Zeren said that the 17-year-old's face was still a little childish, "to put it bluntly, cheeky." ”
Qimei Zeren got into the car and said to take us to another place. He likes to play basketball, claiming to have 10 years of golfing experience, and in addition to the Buddhist Academy, there is a basketball court, about ten minutes away.
Ten minutes later, we stopped in front of a school in the valley and looked up to see the blue door plaque that read," "Eight Bang Damagala Art School." Inside were two long strips of Tibetan houses, and we entered one of them, which was warmer than outside, and only the apprentices sat quietly in front of the drawing board to paint and draw thangkas. The production cycle of a thangka is very long, as short as half a year, as long as more than ten years.
In another house, a group of younger apprentices sat at the table and practiced white drawing, also quietly. Teacher Tashi Dorjee stood in the doorway, with a strong physique, a flat face when he did not speak, and a smile when he spoke. "Painting is a part of my life, I never dare to write at will, and whenever the tip of the pen touches the canvas, I feel very heavy in my heart."
He was 6 years older and 59 years older than Chime Dorjee. The two once drew as classmates and are now teachers. The teaching of Thangka basically relies on small workshop teaching, which is run by older Thangka painters, and most of the places are also their own (the Babang Damagala Art School was built on the basis of Tashi Dorjee's self-financing ten years ago), and the apprentices paid a meager subsidy for food and accommodation, and studied free of charge at the teacher's home. Tashi Dorjee hopes that they will have a skill to feed themselves when they grow up, and he also hopes that thangka can be passed on.
A child named Akihisa Dorjee was called out as a translator, he was dark and thin, wore a short jacket, had a narrow face, and his big eyes were shining. Three years ago, when Akihisa Dorjee was about to go to high school after finishing junior high school, his two sisters were in college, and the burden on the family was not light. So at the joint decision of his family and himself, he came here with the lama who had become a monk at the Eight Kingdoms Monastery.
Here the mobile phone can not receive the signal, sometimes lying on the second floor window sill to barely receive two blocks. The school takes one day off every ten days and returns home once a year for the New Year. Akihisa Dorjee still longs for high school and college life, but he also likes to draw.
When the group sent us out, it rained heavily, and Teacher Tashi Dorji said all the way that it was a pity that he could not speak Chinese, otherwise he really wanted to talk for a while, grinning. The rain was getting heavier and heavier, and we hurried to the car with our palms to block the rain, and when we looked back, they stood calmly in the rain and smiled and said goodbye to us.
We rushed back to see the thangka at The Babang Temple, and as luck would have it, one of his classmates had a good relationship with the lama who guarded the temple and took the key. The sun was setting, and two young masters of the Buddhist academy led us through the dim sunlight and light, Shakyamuni's large earlobes, the eyebrows of the sixteen arhats hanging low, the cloth bag monks and children surrounding, the Vajra standing in the flames, flowers, mountains, clouds in the middle, they stretched out from the long walls, hanging from the main hall more than twenty meters high, no wind, no fluttering.
The giant paintings are silent as a mystery, most of the painters who created them are no longer named, and posterity speculates that they have also learned hard since childhood, trekked a long way, wanted to surpass their predecessors or settle their own bodies, and finally wrote for decades, pursuing themselves in the boundless world.
It was already dark when we came out of the Temple of The Eight States, and we walked along the red high walls, the sky was like a piece of tin, and the stars were scattered among the valleys. Seeing that the time was almost late, she quickly got on her classmate's motorcycle and headed to the top of the mountain, where the motor sound and flashing neon lights adorned the silent deep blue valley.
Well-preserved frescoes at Hachibangsa Temple
Qimei Zeren, who is preparing for a retreat at Babang Temple
Buddha statues at Babang Temple
The butler displays the scriptures collected by the Eight Kingdoms Temple
The little lama of the Eight States Temple
The butler opened the door of the large cabinet of scriptures in the eight states temple
Evening at Babang Temple