3.94

1

Dec 20, 2012

I kind of want to return this book, but I don't think I physically can. I knew that going into it, but since I own Celestial Gallery (normal-sized) I thought this would be a better book and that I wouldn't just get 66 pages of Taras.

Just to be clear to everyone perusing these books, Romio is not actually a thangka painter. He's a thangka collector who claims to be a painter and has fooled a lot of people. Spotting the variations in styles between different artists is very easy to do if you've I kind of want to return this book, but I don't think I physically can. I knew that going into it, but since I own Celestial Gallery (normal-sized) I thought this would be a better book and that I wouldn't just get 66 pages of Taras.

Just to be clear to everyone perusing these books, Romio is not actually a thangka painter. He's a thangka collector who claims to be a painter and has fooled a lot of people. Spotting the variations in styles between different artists is very easy to do if you've spent time looking at thangkas, and it's even easier in this version because the pictures are so large (and yet still cut-down from their full versions. Why?).

Romio's books are clearly a group of probably Nepalese painters who try to imitate each other to look like a consistent person, but they're not. You can tell pretty easily who is who by looking at water or flame patterns. Those are painting areas where people are more likely to develop their own style of depicting images, and they'll vary to a large degree in quality, though some of it's just taste. The point is, at least a half a dozen artists were involved in making these thangkas.

This book actually makes the game of trying to identify artists kind of fun because it's the same image over and over. A professional thangka painter won't vary in his composition or measurements so much. In some pictures Tara's nose is too low or too long or too high. Or the face is too round. You can't alter measurements too much in the Menri style that is used for most images, despite his claims to be a master of the Newari style that really only appears in full force toward the back of the book. Also, one of the Taras (in the Afterword) needs to bleach her upper lip.

Aside from basically insane mandalas there's not a lot of visual variation. Unlike Celestial Gallery, almost all of the backgrounds are totally nature-filled, so it's lots and lots and lots of stylized trees and big leaves and flowers and maybe repeating images of different emanations of the central figure. Usually I buy these huge books for the stuff going on in the corners, which is harder to see in small books.

On the other hand, if you just want a ton of Tara posters to hang on your walls, buy the book, cut them out, and frame them. It's definitely the cheapest route to decorating a house. And it's a neat book to show people. Otherwise, don't bother.

Update: On a more close inspection, I'm fairly sure that a lot of these thangkas are digital manipulations and not real. Parts of them are clearly real with the marks of a hand-painted thangka and the rest are simply too perfect to possibly have been painted by a person. I don't care how big they are in real life; I've seen thangkas by master painters that are three stories tall and they aren't as precise as the patterns in the backgrounds of these thangkas. I lowered the score for the book based on this assumption. ...more

5

May 27, 2008

Get lost in the huge (2 feet tall) pages of the gorgeous reproductions of painter, Romio Shrestha. Like his first book, Celestial Gallery, the colors and details of the paintings are mind blowing! This time the focus is on Goddesses.