Nick Dudka | The Buddhist Art of THANGKA

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.

News:

11.07.2011
To the shop I put a few new publications we've done for the Dzogchen Forum in Moscow (May 2011). Here you can see the Album of Buddhist Art of Thangka with foreword of Chogyal Namkhai Norbu.
Also there is a set of Buddhist Guardian Deities cards.
You can look and order it here.

02.01.2011
Now I understood the real value of Holidays!
Finally, I manage to put in my gallery 10 (Ten!!!) thangkas which were finished during last two years.
It's my great pleasure to share with you my work.

25.12.2010
Merry Christmas and Happy New year!
Wow! Last year flew so fast!!! And not only last one...
Best wishes to all of you!

all the history is here 1 2 3 4 5 6 >>>