Tibet is one of very few places in the world where traditional wall painting is still a living activity, and every day new murals are being painted in monasteries somewhere in Tibet.
The more than 3000 monasteries that existed in Tibet before the destructions of the Chinese Cultural Revolution were all adorned with murals on practically every interior wall. Some of these murals were of outstanding quality, comparable to the finest art works of the West.
Luckily a few of these murals still exist in the few hundred monasteries that survived, having been saved by locals in different ingenious ways. However those few survivals are in constant danger of being destroyed in various ways.
One of these ways is the difficulty of keeping the building and thereby the wall that carries the mural in good shape, not because that in itself is difficult but because the many monks who were needed to carry out this maintainance have now been reduced to only the few that are officially allowed in each monastery. If the flat roofs are not properly maintained they can start leaking rainwater a few drops of which can ruin a mural. Also damaging is the smoky soot from hundreds of burning butter lamps which will cover the mural over time, and also the grease from pilgrims touching the murals while walking along the walls. This means that wonderful murals are being lost or damaged every single day.
However, conservation is carried out mainly by
conservators from mainland China, but unfortunately only on a very small and far from sufficient scale. Tibetan artists are not trained in conservation but nonetheless almost all those practicing conservation find that the Chinese conservators lack understanding of the special
Tibetan material circumstances, sometimes entailing mistakes while working.
