STUNNING ARTISTIC TREASURES PRODUCED IN AFTERMATH OF GENGHIS KHAN EXPLORED IN UNIQUE EXHIBITION
The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in
Western Asia 1256-1353
April 13 through July 27, 2003
LOS ANGELES- The saga of Genghis Khan and the Mongols has long appealed to the Western imagination. Beginning in the late Middle Ages, first-hand traveler accounts, such as those of Marco Polo, helped create a place in the popular consciousness for the Mongols that continues to this day. The fact that the Mongols achieved their empire through war and conquest has also added to a sometimes macabre fascination. But the legacy of Genghis Khan extends well beyond the front line. For more than a century his descendants ruled an often loosely united Mongol confederacy in which the promotion of pan-Asian trade, an avid taste for luxury goods, and the practice of relocating artists combined to produce an unprecedented cross-fertilization of artistic ideas throughout Eurasia.
To retell this story, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has organized The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256-1353, the first exhibition to explore the important artistic and cultural achievements that occurred in the Iranian world in the aftermath of the Mongol invasions. The exhibition focuses on the Ilkhanid dynasty founded by Genghis Khan's grandson Hulegu. This dynasty ruled in an area encompassing Iran, Iraq, western Afghanistan, southern Russia, and eastern Turkey, and maintained a relationship with China's Yuan dynasty, established by another grandson, Khubilai Khan. It was a period of brilliant cultural flowering, as the Mongol masters sought to govern their disparate empire and in the process sponsored the creation of a bold new visual language. By uniting eastern and western Asia for more than a century, the Mongols produced a unique occasion for cultural exchange that forever changed the face of art in the Iranian world, making it a focal point of innovation and synthesis for the next 300 years. As the lively manuscript illustrations, opulent decorative arts, and splendid architectural elements assembled for this exhibition reveal, this too was Genghis Khan's legacy.
"An exhibition dedicated to the remarkable cultural achievements that followed in the wake of a period of almost unfathomable destruction may seem an unusual topic," noted LACMA curator Linda Komaroff. "The fact is, however, that the Mongols' practices of governance, patronage, conscription, and trade produced a singular environment for artistic creation."
The Exhibition
The exhibition tells the story of Genghis Khan's legacy through more than 200 spectacular works of art from museums and collections worldwide, including dazzling silk textiles, brilliantly glazed ceramics, jewelry and objects fabricated of gold and silver for daily use, rare works carved in stone and wood, and outstanding examples of the art of the book. A highlight will be the display of 21 vividly illustrated pages from the Great Mongol
Shahnama (Book of Kings). Now dispersed among numerous collections worldwide, this version of the Iranian national epic-made for a royal patron-is one of the most magnificent ever produced.
Following the introductory gallery, the exhibition, which comprises a number of unprecedented features, will be arranged thematically. One section, for example, will be devoted to art of the Yuan dynasty-presenting a number of spectacular objects, never before seen outside of China.
Textiles as Power
Textiles were among the luxury goods especially coveted by the Mongols. A number of these magnificent textiles will be featured in the exhibition, in particular so-called "cloth of gold"-silk woven with gold-wrapped thread. For the Mongols, clothing and even tents made from this sumptuous material became visible proof of their new prosperity. The Persian historian Juvayni, writing in the mid-13th century, illustrated the Mongols' rise to power by noting that before Genghis Khan, they wore clothing made "from the skin of dogs and mice." Because of their portability, textiles played a crucial role in the transmission of artistic ideas from East to West Asia. The hybrid style that developed under Mongol rule is represented by a splendid textile, woven in gold on a silk foundation, whose decoration includes rows of back-to-back griffins and medallions enclosing similarly paired lions.
Courtly Life in Tent and Palace
The Legacy of Genghis Khan will reflect both the temporary and permanent settings of Ilkhanid courtly life. As nomads, the Mongols migrated seasonally, a practice continued by their Ilkhanid descendants even after they built palatial residences. Seasonal camps were used not only for hunting, a favorite Mongol pastime, but for a variety of state events, such as the selection and enthronement of the new ruler. Enormous tents were used on these ceremonial occasions - they could hold as many as 2,000 men, and were constructed of costly and elaborately worked textiles. Of one such tent, a contemporary observer wrote, "The disc of the sun lost its brightness out of jealousy.and the resplendent moon wore a sulky expression."
A unique feature of the exhibition will allow visitors to stand within a reconstruction of the interior of a fabulous tent comprised of actual late 13th-century textiles. These spectacular tent panels, woven of silk and gold are so remarkable in their structure, materials, and design, that they must have been made for a royal patron.
The permanent courtly setting will be represented by fabulous gilt and lustered tiles that once decorated the sole excavated palace of the Ilkhanid period, which will be recontextualized in the exhibition. The tiles will be shown in a special gallery that reflects the octagonal form of some of the actual rooms of a palace at the site known today as Takht-i Sulaiman ("Throne of Solomon"). Some of the tiles are decorated with dragons and phoenixes-mythic beasts that were motifs imported from China and associated with royalty. Other tiles bear heroic figures and quotations from the Iranian national epic, the
Shahnama (Book of Kings). Apart from its presumed use as a means of propaganda to enhance the legitimacy of the Ilkhanid ruler, the magnificent tile decoration from Takht-i Sulaiman will allow visitors to glimpse how the Mongol rulers of Iran decorated their palaces, merging cultural elements from eastern and western Asia.
Administration - The Mongol Express
Though fundamentally conquerors, the Mongols sought more than plunder. Recognizing that the establishment of stable forms of government would be to their advantage, the Mongols built upon existing institutions and systems or developed new ones. For example, to facilitate communication, they established a postal-courier network that allowed for the swift transmission of royal orders from one end of the empire to the other (Marco Polo mentions that messengers could travel 200-300 miles a day along this network.) To suggest the complexities involved in administering the vast Mongol empire, the exhibition includes gifts of tribute from one ruler to another, an official document, paper money and gold coinage, and passports. One beautifully crafted cast-iron and silver-inlaid metal passport, that allowed its owner to travel in safety, bears an inscription that reads in part: "By the strength of eternal heaven, an edict of the Emperor. He who has no respect shall be guilty."
Religion Under the Empire
The Mongols were practitioners of shamanism (in which a shaman mediates between humans and the spirit world), but as they transformed from nomadic warriors into leaders of a great empire, they came into close contact with other systems of belief among the diverse peoples they now ruled. While their brethren in China converted to Buddhism, the Ilkhanids made Islam their official state religion in 1295. As in other Islamic lands, the construction, furnishing and decoration of mosques and religious edifices was the responsibility of the ruler and high court officials. In a special gallery devoted to art in the service of Islam, the exhibition visitor will see sumptuously illuminated manuscripts of the Koran, furnishings that include a remarkable carved wood rahla, or Koran stand, and architectural decoration, notably a large and splendid glazed tile mihrab, or prayer niche. Although the works of art in this gallery reflect the styles and techniques of Ilkhanid art seen elsewhere in this exhibition, they are grouped together here in order to give a better sense of their original context and singular purpose.
Manuscript Illustration and Propaganda
Perhaps the most profound impact of the Mongol invasions on the arts of Iran was in the new role of manuscript illustration, which became a significant and influential forum for courtly patronage. Beginning in the early 14th century, the main focus of Ilkhanid patronage was historical works and epic poems. Histories were written expressly to glorify the achievements of the dynasty, as in the
Jami' al-tavarikh (Compendium of Chronicles)-the first world history encompassing not only the Mongols but the ancient Iranian and Arabian kings, the prophet Muhammad and the caliphs, the Chinese, the Indians, and the Jews. Epics represent the continuation of an existing genre, exemplified by the
Shahnama (Book of Kings), which tells of the pre-Islamic kings and heroes of Iran. Large sections of both manuscripts will be reunited specifically for this exhibition and displayed as single or double folios.
Early fourteenth-century versions of the Shahnama were copied and illustrated in Tabriz, the Ilkhanid capital, as well as Baghdad and Shiraz, in southern Iran. A specific style of painting is associated with each of these centers for manuscript production, yet all early fourteenth-century
Shahnama illustrations share certain important features. Although the text of the
Shahnama is set in a mythic past, the figures in all of these paintings are almost invariably clothed in the style of the day, and their facial features and hairstyles are those of the Mongols. Likewise, representations of architecture, furnishings, arms and armor, and other accouterments always reflect contemporary life. These paintings were not intended as accurate depictions of court life. They instead portray an idealized world with fantastically colored landscapes where kings, heroes, and courtly figures are depicted as idealized types reflecting the ethnicity of the ruling elite, recasting ancient Iranian kings as contemporary Mongol sovereigns.
This identification between contemporary rulers and ancient kings was both deliberate and significant. It is generally accepted that the Ilkhanids and their successors made use of the arts of the book to further their own political agendas, using manuscript illustration to justify and legitimize the ruling elite. In initiating a tradition of Persian illustrated manuscript production, the Ilkhanids also instituted one of politically motivated patronage of this medium, which helped ensure its cultural and aesthetic importance.
Historical Background
The Mongols were a pastoral, nomadic people occupying the eastern end of the Eurasian steppe, north of the Gobi Desert. United in 1206 under the rule of Genghis Khan (also Chinggis Khan, meaning "Oceanic Ruler"), the Mongols soon launched invasions of northwestern China and Islamic central and western Asia. Genghis Khan died in 1227, leaving his sons and grandsons to create a world empire through their subjugation of China in 1234, southern Russia and the Volga region by 1241, and all the Islamic lands west of the Oxus River by 1260. Khara Khorum, in central Mongolia, became the first capital of the new commonwealth, which was apportioned among the four sons of Genghis Khan.
Politically, the invasion of western Asia brought to a decisive end the long period of Arabo-centric dominance, underscored in 1258 by the Mongols' termination of the 'Abbasid caliphate, which had ruled from Baghdad for over 500 years. Culturally, the Mongol invasions and the so-called Pax Mongolica (Mongol Peace) helped infuse and energize Iranian art with novel forms, meanings, and motifs that were further disseminated throughout the Islamic world.
Catalogue, Programs and Events
An illustrated catalogue - published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press - will accompany the exhibition. Edited by the exhibition's curators, LACMA's Linda Komaroff and Stefano Carboni from the Metropolitan Museum, the book will feature essays by an interdisciplinary team of scholars. In addition to the curators of the exhibition, contributors include James C. Y. Watt, the Metropolitan's Brooke Russell Astor Senior Curator and Chairman, Department of Asian Art; and, from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, John Hirx, Head Objects Conservator; Marco Leona, Senior Conservation Scientist; and Pieter Meyers, Senior Research Chemist. The catalogue
is available at LACMA's museum store and through the museum's Web site at www.lacma.org. The exhibition will be accompanied by a number of public programs including a world-premiere documentary film, lectures, a panel discussion, family programs, a symposium, and a Festival of Persian Music and Dance.
The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia, 1256–1353
Catalog
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About LACMA
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is the foremost encyclopedic art museum in the western United States. Only 37 years old as an independent institution, the museum has assembled a collection of approximately 100,000 works from around the world, spanning the history of art from ancient times to the present. Through its far-reaching collections and extensive public programming, the museum is both a resource to and a reflection of the many cultural communities and heritages in Southern California.
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Credit Line:
This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. It was supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, promoting excellence in the humanities. Additional support was provided by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, Amina and Ahmad Adaya, and Joan Palevsky. Support for the conservation research component of the exhibition was provided in part by a grant from The Barakat Foundation. An indemnity has been granted by the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Transportation assistance was provided by Lufthansa German Airlines. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Curator:
Linda Komaroff, curator of Islamic Art, LACMA
