Tibet

Tibet is famed for its majestic beauty, and also for its ongoing struggle for cultural survival. This collection of photographs from the British Library, taken by two British diplomats in the early 20th century, shows traditional Tibetan culture before Chinese rule was imposed. In Lhasa, a noble family take a picnic in a park, the women’s elaborate head-dresses adorned with pearls. Travelling folk- opera singers pose in costumes and masks. Tibet covers an area as large as the UK, France and Germany combined, with a landscape that includes magnificent glaciers and Himalayan peaks, but also high plateaux and valleys with farmland, all of which are atmospherically evoked. These were the final decades of a society that had changed little since the Middle Ages, but was about to be savagely oppressed. The photographs, caught in a window of time, form a treasured record of the true spirit of Tibet.