Learn about the processes and methods for creating Himalayan art that were developed over centuries, refined through collaborative efforts of patrons and artists, and encompass all known traditional art making media. To make three-dimensional objects, artists sculpt and carve in clay, stone, and wood, cast images in the round, and hammer repoussé reliefs in metal.
Textile artisans produce images using the appliqué technique, embroidery, and silk weaving and follow the same rules of proportion as the painters of two-dimensional works. Ordinary people also create objects, such as plaques made from molds using clay, and employ woodblocks to imprint images on cloth or paper to make prayer flags, amulets, and texts. Skilled painters create hanging scrolls called thangka using mineral pigments on prepared cloth or silk canvases.
The invention of printing can be directly connected to Buddhism and the need to reproduce religious texts and simple pictures of the Buddha. This demand greatly influenced the development of printing technology. Text reproduction began with stamping and rubbing, which led directly to block printing.
Wood is widely used to produce woodblocks, which are carved in negative relief and intended for printing images, texts, prayer flags, initiation cards, and images used as charms in amulets (fig. 1). Printings from such blocks can also be used to mass produce important visual compositions for series of paintings, canonical texts, and collected works of famous teachers, as well as prayer flags (fig. 2).
The Chinese craftsmen were the first to use this process to print texts, beginning sometime before the seventh century, and Tibetans adopted the block printing technology as early as the twelfth century.
The video below shows present-day craftsmen making woodblocks at the Degé printing house.
A segment from Art religieux du Bhoutan (Religious Arts of Bhutan), the film by Marie-Noëlle Frei-Pont. Filmed on an 8mm film, 1974 to 1982. With kind permission of Marie-Noëlle Frei-Pont & Society Switzerland-Bhutan. The Rubin Museum of Art, "Art religieux du Bhoutan (Religious Arts of Bhutan) - Prayer Flag Printing," YouTube, July 6, 2023, 3:55, https://youtu.be/cP3YnnGERKg.
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