Nyima Tsering a decipher of Tibetan Mystery

Deep in southwestern rural China lives a Tibetan painter whose name ranks high in the Who's Who of the World published by British Cambridge International Notable- Persons Biographical Center.

As global fame came his way in the early 1990s, Nyima Tsering responded calmly, "Fame has a boundary and dies quickly."

Nyima Tsering's real interest was to better reveal to the world with his paint brushes a true Tibet, rich in religious tradition and urgent to be modernized.

Anthony Ether, a BBC television producer, gave Nyima Tsering's talents a big compliment by saying that he had finished within only dozens of years what took European artists five centuries when it came to the modernization of religious painting arts.

Nyima Tsering's passion for painting originated from his hometown, Dege County, in Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Garze, an ancient cultural city surrounded by the Dege Scripture Printing Academy. Colorful mural paintings and solemn, but vivid bronze clay scriptures gave him the first impressions of the abstruse religion.

His systematic study of painting dated back to 1958, when Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts (SAFA) established a national minority class to enroll talented students from areas inhabited by national minorities after the serf system was abolished and democracy was pushed forward in early 1950s.

Decades later Nyima Tsering recalled that it was there, learning the basic skills of sketching, dissecting, perspective and coloring,he felt being able to decipher those profound and mysterious scriptures and paintings for the first time."

Between 1957 to 1967, over a hundred minority teenagers were admitted to SAFA and later embarked on the road of ethnic arts. Among them, Nyima Tsering, who stood out and took the lead in modernizing ethnic art by steering Tibetan painting out of religious ruts.

In Tibet, under the feudal serf system, only a few nobles had the right to get an education and flocks of commoners were illiterate. To survive in the snow-covered plateau with natural living conditions as severe as Polar regions, people there usually sought support and comfort from religion.

As of the appearance of Tibetan language in 6 A.D. the painting of religious themes long dominated Tibetan art circles and helped enlighten people about what heaven and hell means. Mural painting therefore blossomed into a decent and enviable profession.

After graduation in 1962, Nyima Tsering followed the steps of other folk painters to simply paint religious paintings. He attributed his depicting average Tibetan people and Tibetan natural conditions to a sudden insight drawn from several slim Tibetan female sheepherder's, struggling in a sand storm to search for their missing yaks.

"Once you lay down on the ground, the wind mixed with sand can almost float you up into the air. What a tenacious vitality there! Weren't those average Tibetans worthy of being idolized," Nyima Tsering contemplated.

To reveal Tibetan people's indomitable vitality and the harmony between nature and humankind, Nyima Tsering pioneered a new track by adding western painting's realism and Han's simplicity to Tibetan arts' mysterious abstract.

Such an experiment enraged traditional audience with his own mother included. The latter even warned him not to "went awry" and send him doubting about his innovation.

Aid came at this tricky juncture from the late Tenth Bainqen who really appreciated his work "King Gesar" in early 1980s and granted him the title of "Bainqen Master Painter", an honor for the best painter throughout Tibet.

Nyima Tsering's resolution to innovate consolidated as he accompanied the Tenth Bainqen to make a tour inspection and got a better understanding of Tibetan people's dreams and needs.

"More than once had I heard the late Tenth Banqien said that the advancement of Tibetans hinged upon the stability of China and the solidarity between Han and Tibet nationalities."

For some visitors, Nyima Tsering said, Tibet was just a live fossil in a natural museum to entertain the world. For Tibetans, Tibet was where their posterity would multiply.

"Tibetans have lived out the natural trials of nature in the past thousands of years. They now deserve a materially well-to-do life and they are giving their bits," said Nyima Tsering.

Fluent in Mandarin and Tibetan Language, as well as his years of study of western art, the 57 year-old ethnic artist has made the invisible soul of Tibetan people shine like the sun.

His works have been purchased by art museums from different countries such as Switzerland, America, France and Great Britain.

Refuse to disclose the specific amount of income, Nyima Tsering said he was quite sated with his financial status.

"Working as the standing director of Chinese Artist' Association and president of Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts with a handsome salary, I am a full-time artist, saved from the trouble of making a living first faced by my western peers," he said.

After spending half a century in Tibetan area, in 1995, Nyima Tsering moved to interior city Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province. He bought eight mu of land in Dujiangyan along the Zongmahe River. Beside it a 400 square-meter apartment was erected, a personal exhibition hall with a land area of six mu is also under construction.

Also he was recently enlisted among the 500 outstanding painters in China and his work entitled "Glorious Ruins" will be put on show in October, Nyima Tsering insists on retiring into his studio with a lyric scene, soaked in painting. "Besides art itself, what can last forever?" he said.






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