On March 21, at the Sanjie Regong National Cultural Palace in Tongren City, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, teacher Ratan Jiancuo was drawing thangkas. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Gu Ling
Xining, March 28 (Xinhua) -- "If you look at this painting of an auspicious horse's head, it is very popular for incorporating the five elements of 'gold, wood, water, fire, and earth' in traditional Chinese culture. In Tongren City, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, 43-year-old Kelsang Gyatso pointed to a thangka hanging on the wall.
In the picture, the white horse's head is surrounded by orange-red clouds, supplemented by a blue background of the lake and other Tibetan cultural elements, and the whole thangka is of excellent texture and exquisite workmanship. "A thangka like this costs 1,900 yuan, and 600 were sold last year." Kelsang Gyatso said.
As an art with unique characteristics of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, thangka is a religious scroll painting painted on cloth curtains and framed in colored satin with natural precious minerals such as agate, coral, and cinnabar as pigments, which has a history of thousands of years.
Named after its origins in the Regong area on the banks of the Longwu River in Tongren City, Huangnan Prefecture, Qinghai Province, Regong Thangka is a typical representative of an important genre of Tibetan Buddhist art, Regong art. In the past, due to factors such as traffic congestion and poor information, the exquisite Regong Thangka was "raised in the deep and unknown" for a long time. In recent years, Regong Thangka has been revitalized and favored by collectors everywhere.
On March 21, Lanka, head of the Sanjie Regong National Cultural Palace in Tongren City, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, displayed a thangka. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Gu Ling
"The French people especially like thangkas, and we have a cooperation with the French Aonai Cultural and Arts Creative Industries Park, which will be displayed and sold from time to time. My single thangka sells for more than $3 million. Ranka, founder of the Sanjaeregong National Cultural Palace in Tongren City, told reporters that the Cultural Palace has trained more than 800 trainees in the past 5 years, and the thangkas they draw are exported to France, Italy, the Czech Republic and other countries.
Wutun Village, where the Sanjay Regong National Cultural Palace is located, and the neighboring Nianduhu Village, Guo Ma Ri Village, and GasaiRi Village, are the birthplace of The regong Thangka, where a group of skilled painters are gathered. "In recent years, the thangka produced here has led to the participation of more farmers and herdsmen." Qiao Delin, director of the management committee of the Huangnan Prefecture Regong Cultural and Ecological Reserve, said.
In 2006 and 2009, Regong Art was successively selected into the National Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection List and the United Nations Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity; in 2008, Huangnanzhou was approved to establish a national-level Regong Cultural and Ecological Protection Experimental Zone, won special funds, introduced local support policies, and supported the inheritors of Regong skills represented by Thangka.
On March 21, at the Sanjie Regong National Cultural Palace in Tongren City, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, Mr. Dou Maocuo was teaching thangka knowledge to students. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Gu Ling
Qiao Delin introduced that in the past three years, the local government has cumulatively identified and announced 16 provincial-level and 118 state-level arts and crafts masters, and built 76 new intangible cultural heritage transmission centers to teach thangka skills.
Nagarjuna Painting Garden is a well-known local intangible cultural heritage comprehensive learning center. The general manager of the painting garden, Guande Jiancuo, told reporters that more than 2,000 works of the painting garden were sold to Indonesia in the previous year alone, "since the establishment of the painting garden for more than 8 years, thousands of students have been trained, and some students have exquisite skills after leaving the school and created many high-quality thangkas."
The reporter walked along the 316 National Highway on the east bank of the Longwu River and saw dozens of Thangka painting academies of different sizes distributed on both sides of the road in just a few kilometers.
"Everyone can paint, and every household has artists", the reporter visited and learned that in Tongren City, "there are several painters in a family" Is very common. See Zhuo Ji, a 33-year-old villager in Wutun Xiazhuang Village, Longwu Town, Tongren City, said that her sister, brother-in-law, father and brother are all Thangka painters.
15 years ago, Regong Thangka also "passed on men not to women, inside and not outside", with less than 5,000 employees. Today, the thangka tradition has changed from the past "family inheritance" to the "living inheritance", and apprentices, whether men, women and children, regional ethnic groups, all over the world.
On March 21, at the Sanjie Regong National Cultural Palace in Tongren City, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, student Zhu Maoji colored thangkas. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Gu Ling
Zhu Maoji, 25, from Xiahe County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, has been studying at the Sanjay Palace of National Culture for five years. She is standing in front of a thangka 5 meters long and 1.8 meters wide, holding a bowl in her left hand and dipping cinnabar from it with a pen in her right hand, dyeing the Tara in the painting.
"It takes patience and willpower to draw thangkas, and I paint them every day until nine o'clock in the evening." Zhu Maoji said that the thangka, called "Three Taras," had been painted with three other companions for a year.
The 26-year-old Radan Jiancuo began learning to draw thangkas at the age of 11. As the third generation of the family's Regong art inheritor, he has brought out more than 100 students in five classes since 2013. "I want more people to know about thangka." He said.
At present, nearly 10,000 of the more than 90,000 residents of Tongren City are engaged in Regong art. Thangka, an ancient work of art, has been rejuvenated in the living heritage.