Tibetan Thangka (Karma Gadri School)

Thangka is the most distinctive religious scroll-painting of the Tibetan people, mounted in brocade and hung for worship, its subjects chiefly buddhas and Buddhist stories. The Karma Gadri school is one of the three great thangka traditions, said to have been founded by the Eighth Karmapa, Mikyo Dorje, and prized for its realistic landscapes, restrained palette and graceful figures. Shangri-La in Diqing hosts thangka academies and transmission bodies that have long studied and carried the Karma Gadri tradition, making it a key centre of the art in the Yunnan Tibetan area.

Painting a thangka moves through many exacting steps—stretching the canvas, sketching, outlining, filling colour, shading, gilding and finally opening the eyes—with pigments ground from minerals and plants such as gold, silver, cinnabar, azurite and malachite; the painter works in a devotional calm, following the canonical proportions of the measure texts, and a single fine piece may take months or years to finish.

Thangka is a synthesis of Tibetan religion, art and science, honoured as a "portable shrine," of real value for the study of Tibetan painting, medicine, astronomy and faith, and one of the most representative visual art forms of Tibetan culture.

Thangka works and study can be found in Dukezong Ancient Town and at local thangka academies and the cultural-preservation association of Shangri-La.