Painting

The painting medium best known outside Tibet is the thangka, or scroll painting. Usually painted on cotton cloth, more rarely on silk, colours are traditionally made from minerals as well as vegetable dyes. Before application they are de-saturated in varying degrees in lime and mixed with boiled gum Arabic. These ‘stone’ colours maintain their intensity so well that many old thangkas still retain striking colours. Today, Tibetan artists also use modern synthetic dyes.

Sculpture

Metal, clay, stucco, wood, stone, and butter are all used in the creation of sculptural images, yet by far the best known of these is metal, since small, portable, bronze images of a great variety of meditation deities are most frequently encountered. Nevertheless, clay and stucco have been used since ancient times, particularly in the creation of very large images installed in monasteries and temples. Wood is also widely used, intricately carved for entrances to temples and for interior pillars and in covers for scriptures in monastery libraries.

Butter Sculptures

These are a complex and uniquely Tibetan concept and are usually constructed by teams of monks for a festival or religious event.
They are not entirely made from butter, however, being constructed on frames of wood and leather, to which are applied barley flour and butter dough. They are then painted. Some were truly gigantic being as high as a three storey building. After the ceremony they are destroyed. In this they are like sand mandalas such as the well known Kalachakra Sand Mandala, painstakingly constructed over many days from different coloured grains of sand before being swept away at the end of the ceremony. The symbolism behind the destruction of such works is based on the illusory nature of things, even those we cherish most.

Decorative Arts and Crafts

Although Tibet had no political ties with China after the end of the Yuan Dynasty (mid 14th century), there were nevertheless frequent visits of monks and lamas to China from the great Tibetan monasteries. This enhanced trade between the two countries and added greatly to the monasteries’ wealth, at the same time providing a channel through which cultural and artistic influences enriched Tibetan life.

Silk brocades and richly worked robes, pearls and precious stones, ritual vessels and incense burners, gilt images and lacquered goods, all found their way into the homes of the aristocracy and into the monasteries. Tibetans produced earthenware, often of fine quality, but porcelain from China, especially since the Ming period, was also highly prized.