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Dragon and Tiger

龍虎図屏風

c. 1546–56

Sesson Shūkei 雪村周継

(Japanese, c. 1492–c. 1577)
Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573) to Momoyama period (1573–1615)
One of a 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.)
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1959.136.1
Location: not on view
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Did You Know?

Sesson's dragon, winding in and out of clouds, may have taken inspiration from Chinese Ming-dynasty works in the style of 13th-century Chinese painter Chen Rong.

Description

In Chinese cosmology, dragons produce rain clouds. The dragon disappearing into and reemerging from clouds in this painting seems to generate rough waves in the water below, pulling it toward the sky. The shape of the foreground wave is indirectly sampled from a painting by 13th-century Chinese painter Yujian, a handscroll once owned by the Ashikaga military rulers of Japan. Sesson must have known the famous painting though copies, and made a copy of his own. Here, the wave reinforces the powerful quality of the dragon.
Dragon and Tiger

Dragon and Tiger

c. 1546–56

Sesson Shūkei

(Japanese, c. 1492–c. 1577)
Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573) to Momoyama period (1573–1615)

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