QHNEWS -- Butter sculpture is one of the three Wonders of Ta'er Monastery (Kumbum Monastery), a noted Tibetan Buddhist monastery in China. Making butter sculpture can be traced back to more than 600 years ago. By monk artists'skillful, yak butter are made into various shapes such as statues of buddhists and humans, mountains and rivers, birds and beasts, trees and flowers, lofts and pavilions.They take on a vivid and colourful look. The monastery holds a butter sculpture show annually on the evening of the Lantern Festival (the 15th day of the Lunar New Year). To prepare for the show, the monk artists usually take two months to stick themselves to butter sculpturing.It is said totally over 2,000 kg of butter was used for the sculpture works.

The pictures taken on Feb. 12, 2006 show a set of yak butter sculptures in Taer Monastery, northwest China's Qinghai Province. Yak butter sculptures in Ta'er Monastery have been created by monk artists and will be shown to the public during the Lantern Festival (the 15th of the 1st lunar month), which falls on Feb. 12 this year. (February 13, 2006 By Judy Photos from Xinhua)

More about butter sculpture:

Butter Flower Butter flower is a kind of distinctive sculpture art made of butter. It is a beautiful wonder in Tibetan culture. The butter flower in Ta'er Monastery is well-known in Tibetan area, called the one of "the Three Wonders"(the other two are embroidery and fresco). Kumbum Monastery Butter flower Latern Festival is on the 15th of the first lunar month per year. Lama artists are making butter flower. Two flower frames are very high, appreciated by thousands and thousands of people.

The shaping of butter flower includes a complete series of organization and scientific procedure. The place made butter flower is called Flower Yard. There are two flower yards in Kumbum Monastery. It is cool on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau , especially in summer and it is fitting for the monks to make butter flower. The pure butter is washed, rubbed , modeled and etc. Then the splendid scene with the lively story formed. The butter flower artistry reflects not only flowers and plants , but also Buddhist story and the Eight Tibetan drama, and the contemporary subject, such as the Founding Ceremony and Cut the Mountain for a Road. The butter flower artistry carries on the characteristic of the Tibetan Buddhist artistry: "exquisite, manifold and skillful". The design and manufacture of the butter flower are passed on from the master and the apprentice by the mouth and the hand in close circumstances.

The two Flower Yards are different from the subject and the manufacture. They keep their own techniques secret, and thus form the independent sects. They are developed in the competition and express to the people their achievement by the new techniques and new-look: mountain, river, building, pavilion, flower, tree, bird and beast. Among them there are hundreds of people. All these designs are interlocked and jagged. The biggest one is two meters, and the smallest one is several centimeters. The people's figures are exquisite, coordinated, vivid and different. Some figures can walk back and forth like wooden images so that they look mystery and lively. The whole flower frame unfolds a historical picture scroll to people by its bright-colored, beautiful, well-knit, coherent and powerful.

On the 15th day of the first lunar month, a special butter flower lantern festival lights up the Kumbum. As a pilgrimage spot for Tibetan Buddhists, the temple has just finished preparation for the festival and received its first batch of visitors last nights.

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