Dragon and Tiger
c. 1546–56
Sesson Shūkei
Sesson Shūkei (Japanese, c. 1492–c. 1577)
Japanese Art
Dragon and Tiger, c. 1546–56. Sesson Shūkei (Japanese, c. 1492–c. 1577). Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink on paper; painting: 157.3 x 339 cm (61 15/16 x 133 7/16 in.); framed: 172.3 x 354 cm (67 13/16 x 139 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1959.136 A tiger sits in a bamboo grove whipped with fierce wind, while a dragon claws through clouds above rough waves. Tiger and dragon are Chinese cosmological symbols of the balancing forces in the world, yin (the feminine aspect) and yang (the masculine aspect). The tiger's roar is also said to generate wind, and the dragon clouds. The screens may have originally been meant to express the fluctuating nature of the world as envisioned in the practice of military divination, or forecasting, based on the Ijing (Book of Changes). This pair of screens is considered the masterpiece of Sesson's body of work, and may have been created for the lord of Odawara in eastern Japan.
- Maker/Artist
- Sesson Shūkei
- Classification
- Painting
- Formatted Medium
- Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink on paper
- Dimensions
- Painting: 157.3 x 339 cm (61 15/16 x 133 7/16 in.); Framed: 172.3 x 354 cm (67 13/16 x 139 3/8 in.)
- Departments
- Japanese Art
- Accession Number
- 1959.136
- Credit Line
- Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Exhibitions
- Japanese Decorative Style, Juxtapositions, Japanese Screens from the Museum and Cleveland Collections, Byobu: The Art of the Japanese Screen, Japanese Ink Painting, Asian Autumn: Masterpieces from the Collection, Highlights of Asian Paintings from The Cleveland Museum of Art, Streams and Mountains Without End: Asian Art and the Legacy of Sherman E. Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Admired from Afar: Masterworks of Japanese Painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art, <em>Japanese Ink Paintings from American Collections: The Muromachi period: An exhibition in honor of Shūjirō Shimada</em>. The Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ (April 25–June 13, 1976).
- Rights Statement
- CC0
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