Artistic Heritage. Tangkha Rheology

The form of Tibetan paintings is many and varied, and one of the most unique and representative is Tangka."Tangka" was transliterated from Tibetan and intended to refer to scroll paintings which can be spread out for appreciation. The appearance of Tangka is due to the inconvenience of transportation on the plateau and the nomadic lifestyle of Tibetan. It is easy to carry, hang, keep and most importantly, convenient to appreciate and worship. It has been perfected by the long-term practice and accumulation of Tibetan. With the verified forms, refined presentation, bright colors and various schools, Tangka reflects the typical Tibetan culture and religious interpretation.Owing to the domination of Tibetan Buddhism, Tangka painters were mainly trained by cloisters. Therefore, their consciousness concept was influenced by doctrine of Tibetan Buddhism and their works were closely related to religion. Nowadays, under the influence of multi-culture social background, the training of Tangka talents has steered from cloisters to folk and Tangka Art then has come back from religion to reality, to humanism. At the end of20century, Tangka Art has already on the road of autonomic development, inheritance and evolution. And its trend of developing is to take oriental culture outlook and spiritual context of Tibetan as the root and start from social life, the rule of art and academic consideration. It also aims to reflect the unique Tibetan style with the priority of modernity, region and nationality. At this new age, the study on Tangka is not only a domain of ethnology, folklore and sociology, but also domain of fine arts and aesthetics.In a word, the development of Tangka Art has taken on a trend of diversification and individualization. Comparing with the inland culture, it has unique geographical features. According to Mr. Fei Xiaotong, the quality of the national psychology is the thought that all the people of one nationality enjoy the feeling of belonging to the same community. Tangka is the carrier of Tibetan psychology, aesthetic perception, religious connotations and customs. This makes the study and exploration of Tangka very meaningful.The paper is divided into three parts. The first part is about the history and classification of Tangka Art. The second part is about the style of traditional Tangka Art, the historical reason of the establishment of its different schools and the contents, style and features of traditional Tangka. The third part is mainly about the causes and features of the inheritance and evolution of Tangka Art nowadays. Some considerations about the development of Tangka in the current situation have also been put forward.