Zanabazar: From Mongolia to the Global Baroque.

Zanabazar Enthroned, ca. 1700, bronze, Chinggis Khaan National Museum, Ulan Bator.

In the century of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the absolute genius of European Baroque – sculptor, painter, and architect, whose ideal home is today the Galleria Borghese thanks to the patronage of Cardinal Scipione Borghese – Asia, too, saw the rise of a figure of comparable stature: Zanabazar (1635–1723).

Born in the heart of the Asian steppe, within one of the largest empires ever built by humankind, Eshidorji belonged to the noble lineage of Genghis Khan. Renowned by his spiritual name, Zanabazar, he was recognized as Öndör Gegeen, “His Holiness the Enlightened One”: the first Khutuktu Jetsundamba, the title of the highest religious authority of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia, venerated as the reincarnation of one of the original five hundred disciples of the Buddha.

An exceptionally charismatic spiritual leader, Zanabazar was also a brilliant linguist and, above all, the greatest Mongolian sculptor of the early modern period. To him and to his disciples we owe works profoundly inspired by travels and periods of residence in Tibetan monasteries, revered as sacred objects in places of worship and in the temples he founded throughout Mongolia. Among these, the representations of the Taras stand out for their exceptionally high aesthetic value: female manifestations of the Buddha, deities associated with protection, liberation, and the inner states of being.

Zanabazar succeeded in spreading Buddhism in Mongolia on an unprecedented scale, making it accessible to ordinary believers. His aim was to create sculptures capable of speaking directly to the eye and the soul: natural, harmonious forms, “warm to the eye,” as the Mongols would describe them.

Bernini and Zanabazar left an indelible mark on their respective cultures, the former in Europe, the latter in Asia. Both inaugurated new artistic languages, developing innovative visions and unprecedented methods for reinterpreting traditional themes and subjects, creating models destined to profoundly influence subsequent generations. Two distant worlds, a single creative force capable of changing the history of art.

In this display, two works – a refined Green Tara and a bronze sculptural self-portrait of Zanabazar himself enthroned – come from the Chinggis Khaan National Museum in Ulan Bator and are presented to the public in a context of dialogue and comparison without precedent. For the first time, works by this artist reach Europe and Italy; for the first time in history, visitors to a Western museum can experience these presences and their aesthetic and formal contiguity with our own artistic heritage, bearing witness to a new and richly promising encounter.