::: Home > Marco Polo > Images of the Mongols

Images of the Mongols

Mongol troops as depicted by Persian artists are shown with bows and arrows and wearing helmets and armor. With thin eyebrows and elongated eyes, they are given an oriental look. A more realistic image of Mongol life appears in Liu Guandao's "Kublai Khan Hunting" and the anonymous "Hunting Geese," Yuan dynasty paintings where the individual variety of the figures and their clothing is more clearly rendered. It appears that many Persian and foreign renderings of the Mongols come from the image of war with which they were associated, and this consequently became the stereotypical image of the Mongol in the eyes of foreigners.