A Tibetan Thangka painting which portrays the Qinghai-Tibet railway and beautiful sceneries along the line is being on show at an exhibition in northwest China's Qinghai Province to mark China's third Cultural Heritage Day.

The 195.6-meter-long and 1.2-meter-wide Thangka, a kind of scroll painting mounted on brocade dating back more than 1,000 years ago, made its debut on Saturday at the Qinghai International Thangka Arts and Cultural Heritage Expo held in Xining, the provincial capital.

Almost all previous Thangka paintings were limited to religious figures and stories. The new works, entitled "Sky Road", is the first and the longest product that depicts the modern life of Tibetans, said Thangka designer Bao Lin.

"We want to give people a general idea about the present-day life of Tibetans and ecological conditions of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau since the world's highest railway was built," he said.

As it was hard to depict natural scenes and modern activities in Thangka painting, It took more than 60 Tibetan artists four years to complete the "Sky Road", Bao Lin said.

Since its operation on July 1, 2006, the Qinghai-Tibet railway was described by locals as a "Sky Road" which brings a happier life for them as trains would carry more tourists to Tibet and ship local products to other parts of the country.

Thangka is usually painted on linen cloth or cotton fabric and mounted by scroll of brocade. It is a mark of Tibetan people's devotion to Buddhism. Thangka was put on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2006.

(Xinhua News Agency June 16, 2008)