Main Home

Asian Art News, March/April 2009 Review

The image of the horse is a powerful one. It excites the imagination, stirs the blood, and has been an iconic subject in the art canon since the earliest cave paintings. In myriad folk traditions the horse speaks to humankind’s dark and ancient history, to strength and nurturing, to work and pleasure, and to the mysteries of life and death.

For the Mongolian people the horse has always been at the very core of life and soci- ety, tradition and philosophy, history and religion. The horse carried the great unifier of the Mongolian tribes Genghis Khan (1162–1227) and his de- scendents’ swift-moving armies across Asia and, in the 13th cen- tury, into the heart of Europe as far as Poland and Hungary. 

Asian Art News, March/April 2009 Review