Although early in its history Tibetan art was predominantly oriented toward India, Tibetan culture both influenced and absorbed successive Chinese artistic traditions. These connections were particularly close during periods when the emperor who ruled China adopted Tibetan Buddhism and invited Tibetan teachers to court.
Hence Chinese imperial workshops adopted Tibetan Buddhist artistic conventions, and Tibet became a repository of Chinese art. These Chinese objects collected in Tibet gradually inspired Tibetan artists to adopt certain Chinese artistic conventions, such as landscape, into Tibetan painting.
Mongolians were intimately involved in Tibetan affairs during the Mongol Empire (ca. 1206-1368), when they ruled both Tibet and China. Later, with the rise of the Geluk School, Mongolians directly aligned with branches of Tibetan Buddhism and converted to the religion. The Buddhist art of Mongolia was thus similar to that of Tibet but distinctive in certain subjects, materials, and styles.
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Tibet or Mongolia
18th century
This painted wooden panel depicts Hayagriva, the Horse-Necked One, a tantric meditational deity (yidam) and a powerful remover of obstacles. He is recognizable by the horse head peaking from his flowing hair at the crown of his head.
Across Asia, Hayagriva is popularly worshiped as the patron god of horses, here invoked in the sensitive depiction of horses at the bottom, complete with a charming bucolic scene of a mare nursing her foal.
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