Paintings Thangkas

Rolled, carried, unrolled again: a thangka was built to travel. Tibetan thangkas are painted scrolls of Buddhist deities and cosmologies, in mineral pigment on cotton and mounted in silk brocade so they could be carried between monasteries. They come from Tibet, Nepal, India and China, from the 18th century to the present: Shakyamuni Buddha, Chenrezig or Avalokiteshvara, Green Tara with Amitabha, White Tara, the protector goddess Lhamo, mandalas and the Bhavachakra or Wheel of Life held in the jaws of Yama. Painted tsakli cards, small images used in initiation rites, and Hindu paintings such as the Vishnu Padam show the same hand at a smaller scale.

Gold line, malachite green and lapis blue keep their brilliance under centuries of butter-lamp smoke. A thangka in its brocade mount suits a meditation room, a stairwell or a bedroom. A tsakli, framed, sits on a bookshelf and keeps its counsel.