Tibetian Paintings
Tibetan painting originated from rock painting in ancient times. It consists mainly of the animal images of deer, ox, sheep, horses, and hunting scenes. Painting was quite developed in ancient times, especially after Buddhism arrived, and religious painting was further developed. Buddhist art not only retains the best of traditional Tibetan art, but is also influenced by Indian, Nepali and Chinese art. It's quite unique and extraordinary splendid! Tibet Buddhism is very abstruse; the artists painted distinctive images of Buddha, and many pictures of him. The painting is mainly exhibited in sculpture, wall paintings, thankas, etc.
Wall paintings contain rich content, involving religion, politics, history, economy, culture, Tibetan medicine, and social life. Any of the Buddhist scriptures, Buddhist messages, fairy tales, history stories, daily living scenes, mountains and rivers, birds and flowers, patterns and adornment can be adopted into a wall painting, which has a unique style. It uses cold and dark colors, such as black, dark blue, mauve, dark grey, brown and white; drawing with lines, especially plain lines; simple, rough and sparse outlines. It has the same style of art as the atmosphere of the monastery, and contains exaggerated and distorted art images.
Brightly colored wall paintings can be found everywhere in Tibetan monasteries. Some of them are more than 1300 years old. The painters gave human life to the statue of Buddha through art, which make the statue look faithful, handsome, merciful, charming, fiery and forthright. Such works exist as picture-story book in all the monasteries. Each of these images has distinct features that can be easily recognized by someone who knows a little bit of Tibetan culture.
Tibetan wall painting is actually pictures of Tibetan history. It describes visually social living, the development of religion, historical tales, local conditions and the customs of Tibet. It is a pearl of Tibetan art!
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