The Mentang School

The Mentang School was founded by Dondrup Gyatso. His sons, Mentang Jiangyang and Mentang Lhundrup and his nephew, Mentang Shiwawo, were the earliest disseminators of the painting skills. The mainfeatures of the Mentang paintings are transplanting the green landscape of the Han region to the background behind the Buddhas in the Tibetan Thangka, and enhancing the Han-style clothing of deities and Buddhas.

The artistic style of these paintings is quite different from those of South Asia. There is no chess format composition on the Thangka, and deities are amid the clouds or in the landscape, while the layout is flexible and full of changes.

Murals of the Mentang School: Vaisramana

Two hundred years after Dondrup Gyatso,a number of great painters emerged from the Mentang School. In the middle of the 17th century, when the New Mentang School was founded, the paintings set the standards for Tibetan painting under the advocacy of the Gelug sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Especially during the Fourth Panchen and the Fifth Dalai period, the New Mentang School’s paintings became a kind of palace art, playing a dominant role in Tibetan art circles. Choyang Gyatso was the founder of the New Mentang Painting School. On the basis of the old Mentang painting techniques, it absorbed the characteristics of the Garze School and the Chen Zher School, abounding with changes in colors and strokes. Choyang Gyatso was a master with very strong abilities in realistic painting. The “Portrait of Lozang Choskyi Gyaltsen,4th Panchen Lama”is an authentic Thangka work signed by the master, boasting accurate modeling and vivid expression.

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