Nickolai N.
Dudka was born on the 1-st of May, 1962 in Dessau,
Germany. He received a European art education at college
in Ulan-Ude, Buryatia, Russia, and at the Academy
of Art in Kiev, Ukraine. His first exposure to the complex
science of Buddhist religioun, philosophy and art occurred in 1986.
buryatian Lama Dharmadoddi and abbot Jimba-Jamso were
his first spiritual teachers. Later, Nicolai met his main spiritual
master Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche. At the beginning of the 1990's
he began an intensive study of thangka painting with visits to Mongolia,
Nepal and India. Following this was a year-long
period of work and education at the Library of Tibetan
Works and Archives (LTWA) in Dharamsala, India under the guidance
of Ven. Sangei Yeshe, the personal artist of HH the Dalai Lama.
At present, Nicolai works as a teacher of drawing and painting
of thangkas in the State Academy of Art in Ulan-Ude
and continues to work in his studio. Many of his thangkas are in Buddhist
Temples in Buryatia and in museums and private collections
of many countries around the world.
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The
thangka, or scroll painting, is a special art of Tibetan Buddhism.
In ancient India, for instance, there was the Pata, Buddhist portraiture,
which was executed on the kasaya (the monk's outer garment) cloth,
and the Hans sometimes used silk fabric as material for paintings.
The material used for thangkas is linen cloth or cotton fabric; silk
cloth is reserved for important subjects. Before painting begins,
the material is stitched along the edges with flax thread and stretched
on a specially made wooden frame (T. Tang-shin). Then a paste made
of animal glue mixed with talcum powder is spread over its surface
to block up the holes in it. When the paste is scraped off and the
cloth gets thoroughly dried, the material is ready for painting. To
begin, the artist works out the sketches of the images with charcoal
sticks. The drawing usually begins with the figure in the centre and
then goes to the surrounding deities or landscape. Colouring comes
last. The pigments used come from non-transparent minerals and plants
such as malachite and cinnabar. They are mixed with animal glue and
ox bile to make the lustre stay. When the painting is done, it is
mounted on a brocaded silk border. Important thangkas are embroidered
on transferred outlines; some of them use a great variety of stitch
patterns such as flat and piled stitches to give them a three-dimensional
effect.
The pictorial subjects of thangkas include portraits of Buddhas, stories
from the lives of saints and great masters. Thangkas are usually rectangular
in shape, and the square ones are reserved for mandalas. Thangka paintings
vary in size, ranging from a little over a few square centimeters
to several square meters. A large thangka often takes large team of
artists months, even years, to make.
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News: |
02.15.2008
Traditional size of the calendar with large variety of thangkas made during last
ten years. Good design and perfect quality! To see bigger size
click
here:
02.07.2008
Losar tashi deleg!!!
All my best wishes for the
New Year — Yellow Mouse Earth year!
Let the year be prosperous, happy and joyful to all of you!!!
Let all your good thoughts be realized and bad thoughts disappeared
like clouds in the early Spring sky!!!
02.03.2008
Not often I manage to update my site. Sorry!
But any way, look
at this table-standing calendar for 2008. Beautiful thangkas, large descriptions of the images
and excellent quality of the print.
Look here:
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the history is here 1 2
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