Fine gold line on a black ground, the look of the Tibetan nagtang, with each deity in full colour at the centre. These are our own drawings, kept to traditional proportions and printed on heavy card, then finished by hand at a temple. Framed in silk brocade, 55 × 71 cm.
Marici Black & Gold Thangka
Six-Armed Mahakala Thangka
Amitabha Black & Gold Thangka
In the old tradition, black-ground painting was kept mostly for wrathful deities and protectors such as Mahakala and Palden Lhamo, and the paintings were made for particular practices rather than for show. Black was the colour of wrathful activity. Ours borrow the look, the gold line against the dark, and use it more widely, for peaceful Buddhas as well as fierce protectors. What a traditional black, gold or red thangka is, and how ours differ: Black, Gold and Red Thangkas.
A black ground does something a coloured one can't: the gold reads first, then the figure, and the whole image changes as the light in the room moves. With a lamp on in the evening, the crystals and gold outlines catch more than they do by day. The four brocade colours change the mood again; Ink & Gold is the most formal partner for a black ground, Crimson Cloud the warmest.
These are prints, not paintings. Elderly lay Buddhists at a temple set the glass crystals one at a time and trace the gold outlines by hand, about two days for each, and part of every order goes back to that temple. Every thangka is framed and ready to hang, and ships free by air, tracked, with duties paid. More on the main Thangka page.
