Following He Suxian, deputy director of the Art Creation Department of the Fujian Provincial Museum of Art, the reporter walked into a hall with an area of over 300 square meters.
This is the Thangka Lacquer Painting Exhibition Hall, a cultural and creative exhibition center located in Karuo District, Qamdo, Tibet Autonomous Region. It was also a "classroom" for training.
On the surrounding tables, lacquer paintings of different sizes are arranged in an orderly manner.
Looking at these paintings, the thin face of this Fujian-Tibet aid cadre could not hide his pride.
Approaching a painting for a closer look, it is nearly 1 meter wide and more than 1 meter high. The picture is a snow-capped mountain. Various materials such as eggshells and paints are arranged in an orderly manner on the canvas, contributing their own colors, and a plateau is painted. Unique sunshine Jinshan scenery.
According to He Suxian, this was created by the painters who are new to the training class.
Most of the Thangka lacquer painters who participated in the training are the younger generation engaged in Thangka creation in Qamdo.
Under the active promotion of the Fujian Provincial Aid to Tibet Task Force, Thangka lacquer painting has taken root in Changdu for more than four years, and more than 160 local painters have participated in it.
The road of painting that starts from one person
Thangka refers to scroll paintings framed with colorful satin, which has distinct national characteristics; Fujian lacquer painting is a form of easel painting that evolved from being attached to arts and crafts to pure art.
With the efforts of the Fujian Provincial Aid-Tibet Task Force, they merged to produce a new art form - thangka lacquer painting.
At the age of 7, he began to learn traditional Thangka. The young painter Renqing Langjia is known as the "first person" of Thangka lacquer painting.
Born in a thangka family, Renqing Langjia learned to speak from the thangka drawn by his parents since he was a child; when he grew up, he followed his great-grandfather Gama Delek and his father Quying Jiangcun to learn how to draw thangka stroke by stroke.
In 2018, under the appointment of the Changdu Cultural Bureau, Renqing Langjia came to Xiamen to participate in the first advanced training class for Chinese peasant lacquer painting held by the Fujian Provincial Museum of Art in Xiamen.
That was his first acquaintance with qihua—“Heartbeat!” Even after a long time, he still remembers the feeling he felt when he saw qihua for the first time.
At that time, a thought flashed through his heart like an electric shock: "If these things are used to draw thangkas, what will happen?"
The "birthplaces" are thousands of miles apart, and there are many differences between the two art forms of thangka and lacquer painting.
According to Zhu Liyan, a distinguished painter at Fujian Youth Painting Academy, in terms of color, Thangka is made of glue boiled from beef bones, while lacquer painting is made of lacquer tree juice. Thangka is more matte, and lacquer painting is brighter; , Thangka mainly uses rendering and overlay techniques, while lacquer painting focuses on grinding, pasting, inlaying and other techniques.
However, differences breed commonality, and there are complementarities among differences.
According to Zhu Liyan, the technique of lacquer painting will allow Thangkas to have a richer display of three-dimensionality, space and material contrast. By borrowing the elements of lacquer, the materials of Thangkas will become more advanced and the performance will be more exquisite.
Qiu Zhijun, curator of Fujian Museum of Art, believes that the appearance of thangka lacquer painting is not a simple "cross-border" or technological innovation, but an active choice of contemporary aesthetics, which opens another door to artistic styles.
It's not easy to try.
The creative material of lacquer painting is natural lacquer, and allergies are a huge challenge for beginners of lacquer painting.
It was the first time he used lacquer painting to create thangkas. Renqing Langjia had to deal with lacquer. Because of allergies, his hands were so swollen that he couldn't bend it, and his face was also swollen and red.
But he gritted his teeth and persisted, finally overcame the allergic reaction and created his first Thangka lacquer painting.
Gain recognition and affirmation from more people
In the process of studying in Fujian, Renqing Langjia completed his second work.
"The first time I created a thangka lacquer painting, the painting looked very immature. The second work has been carefully polished, and the integration of thangka lacquer painting has become more mature. I think it can be shown to more people." Ren Qinglang plus said.
This work was later recommended to participate in the exhibition of the National Art Fund project "Rural Paint Colors - Chinese Peasant Lacquer Painting Exhibition" in Tokyo, Japan.
At the exhibition site, there were people coming and going, and Ren Qinglang waited anxiously.
After a while, a man came to the work and looked at it carefully.
After listening to the introduction, he asked Rinchen Langa: "Is this painting for sale? What is the price?" After buying the painting, he also left the contact information of Rinchen Langa, hoping to have the opportunity to continue to buy his Thangkas in the future lacquer painting.
"It seems that this innovation is not only appreciated by people, but also has a certain market. This may be the direction I can explore." Ren Qinglang added.
Returning to his hometown with his works created in Fujian, Renqing Langjia introduced thangka lacquer painting and his own ideas to his parents.
As a national intangible cultural heritage inheritor, Renqing Langjia’s great-grandfather, Garma Dele, is very open-minded—looking at Renqing Langjia’s new work, he admired this new technique and expressed support for his grandson’s attempt.
But not everyone approves of Ninsei Langa's creation.
Some thangka painters expressed their incomprehension: "Is the traditional thangka bad? Why do you have to do thangka lacquer painting?"
"The innovative technique is to enrich the art of Thangka itself. Thangka, which has been passed down for thousands of years, can have more new categories and allow more people to accept Thangka." Renqing Langjia responded in this way.
Some people approve, some people doubt.
Renqing Langjia knew that he had to do it himself first and "speak with achievements".
The biggest support comes from Fujian, the hometown of lacquer painting.
Hearing that Renqing Langjia wanted to create Thangka lacquer paintings, the Fujian Provincial Aid to Tibet Task Force immediately found this young man, hoping to use Thangka lacquer paintings as a starting point to promote the work of aiding Tibet in the cultural industry.
In accordance with the requirements of the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to carry out the "small group" aid work to Tibet, the Fujian Provincial Aid Tibet Task Force, together with the Propaganda Department of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee, the Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, the Provincial Art Museum and the Changdu Cultural Bureau, established the "Thangka Lacquer Painting Cultural Industry Group" to promote the targeted poverty alleviation model of farmers' lacquer painting art implemented by the Fujian Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism to Qamdo and train thangka lacquer painters.
Make big thangka paint painting circle of friends
In 2019, as one of the "Spring Rain Project" projects of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Fujian Provincial Museum of Art and the Changdu Cultural Bureau jointly held the first training course on Fujian-Tibetan thangka lacquer painting.
Renqing Langjia became a teaching assistant in the training class.
The trainee Baima Tsering impressed him deeply: in the practice session, Baima Tsering chose a relatively complex creative theme.
In order to complete the work on time and participate in the exhibition, Baima Tsering worked overtime in the classroom to draw after class every day.
One night after two o'clock, Renqing Langjia found that the lights in the classroom were still on. He went over and saw that it was Baima Tsering who was concentrating on creation.
In the end, Baima Tsering completed the creation as scheduled during the 35-day training period.
These works were later exhibited in the Qamdo Museum.
Looking at the audience in front of the painting, Baima Tsering smiled all over his face.
As a teacher of the training class, Zhu Liyan was very pleased, "The emergence of thangka lacquer painting is the seed of lacquer painting sown in Tibet, which will soon take root and sprout."
Opening training courses is the most direct way to sow seeds—in the past three years, Qamdo has opened 8 training courses on thangka lacquer painting, and more and more people have begun to devote themselves to the creation of thangka lacquer painting.
Today, Renqing Langjia has a WeChat group with several hundred members on his mobile phone, in which are all thangka painters who have studied thangka lacquer painting or are interested in lacquer painting.
Artists from various counties in Qamdo consult questions, share works, and exchange orders here. It is very lively every day.
"In the future, we can establish a thangka lacquer painting association in Qamdo to promote the development of thangka lacquer painting in a systematic way, so that more people can participate." Renqing Langjia said.
Li Ling, a Fujian-Tibet cadre and deputy director of the Changdu Cultural Bureau, introduced that in the next step, the Fujian Provincial Tibet-aid Team will continue to expand and strengthen the thangka lacquer painting culture with the "Thangka Lacquer Painting Cultural Industry Group" as the starting point. industry.
Through government support and individual active investment, Qamdo will continue to hold "Thangka lacquer painting skills training courses", set up Thangka lacquer painting studios, and cultivate more talents who integrate theory and painting skills, and tap high-level talents from them. Painting talents, launch a group of representative painters, and create more high-quality paintings.
Chen Anying, director of the Art History Department of the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University, believes that Fujian, as a large lacquer art province, has the most active lacquer art creation and management groups in China.
The thangka lacquer painting training held by the Fujian Provincial Museum of Art in Qamdo, Tibet, is not only a technical export and cultural assistance, but also a reciprocal cultural exchange.
Fujian-Tibet symphony of mountain and sea songs, and thangka lacquer paintings complement each other.
Historically, cultural exchanges between ethnic groups have jointly created an open, inclusive and splendid Chinese culture.
Xu Li, vice chairman of the China Artists Association, believes that the two intangible cultural heritages, lacquer art and Thangka, have achieved a "cross-border collision" that has spanned thousands of years, and a new art form of Thangka lacquer painting was born.
The gentleness and inclusiveness of lacquer and the holiness and solemnity of thangka are artistically integrated in each work, just like the deep fusion of emotions between nations.
Thangkas on the snow-covered plateau and lacquer paintings by the sea stimulate each other, and Thangka lacquer paintings have become a vivid practice of ethnic exchanges and integration in the new era.
"This is the integration of art and civilization, and it is also the exchange and integration of ethnic groups. Thangka lacquer painting has condensed the common strength of batch after batch of Fujian aid-Tibet cadres from its birth to growth. Inheritance and innovation. The art poverty alleviation model combined with thangka lacquer painting has helped local Tibetan compatriots improve and expand sales through the integration of painting, change their way of life, and bring them more income.” Fujian Provincial Aid to Tibet Task Force said the team leader.
"People's Daily Overseas Edition" (Edition 07, January 11, 2023)