Tenpa Rabten, a outstanding painter of Tibetan spiritual scrolls referred to as thangkas, has died on the age of 82, RFA has realized.
Rabten, who handed on the information of his conventional artwork type to a whole lot of scholars, died Monday within the Tibetan capital Lhasa, in response to sources within the area.
Born right into a household of artists in 1941, Rabten was launched to thangka portray at a younger age. His grandfather Aepa Tsering Gyawu was the private artist to the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, and was one of many many artists who designed imagery for the Tibetan forex notes used earlier than China’s takeover of Tibet in 1951.
Rabten’s father, Drungtok Kelsang Norbu, was a professor on the Inventive Coaching Institute underneath the Kashag, Tibet’s pre-takeover governing council.
A major quantity of Tibet’s cultural heritage was destroyed throughout China’s 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, and Tibetan artists like Tenpa Rabten had been forbidden to provide conventional spiritual artwork. Nevertheless, Rabten later wrote hundreds of articles about conventional Tibetan portray, and served starting in 2014 as a mentor within the Chinese language Nationwide Artists Affiliation.
In 1980, Rabten based a non-public positive arts college offering free training for underprivileged college students, finally coaching round 200 artists. He additionally taught as a professor of conventional Tibetan portray at Tibet College in Lhasa and obtained worldwide recognition, together with awards given in China and Japan, honoring his contributions to the humanities.
Chatting with RFA, Buchung Nubgya, a Tibetan residing in New York, mentioned that lots of his personal academics had been shut pals of Tenpa Rabten and shared the identical enthusiasm for his or her career. He had met Rabten a number of instances himself, he mentioned.
“There have been many academics of thangka portray, however Tenpa Rabten was somebody who nurtured a whole lot of scholars underneath his private steerage, and he contributed immensely to the preservation of Tibetan conventional portray,” Nubgya mentioned.
“His passing is an irreparable loss for Tibetan custom.”
Thangka work date again to the seventh century. They aren’t solely valued for his or her aesthetic magnificence, additionally they function instructional and meditational aids, as every element has a which means that refers to ideas in Buddhist philosophy.
Thangka even have ceremonial use. Some Tibetan monasteries possess big Thangka scrolls which can be unrolled on sure holidays for public viewings and the ceremonies.
The standard artwork has been preserved and handed by means of the lineage of Thangka masters and their college students. Generally the lineage stays with the household and is handed from father to son. An authentic Thangka portray is a rarity and might value between $1,000 and $15,000 relying on its measurement and intricacy.
