Skip to Main Content

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)
Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink on paper
Each: 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
Location: not on view
You can copy, modify, and distribute this work, all without asking permission. Learn more about CMA's Open Access Initiative.

Download, Print and Share

Did You Know?

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.

Description

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 Yijing (Book of Changes).
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)

See Also

Visually Similar Artworks

Contact us

The information about this object, including provenance, may not be currently accurate. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about this object, please email collectionsdata@clevelandart.org.

To request more information about this object, study images, or bibliography, contact the Ingalls Library Reference Desk.

All images and data available through Open Access can be downloaded for free. For images not available through Open Access, a detail image, or any image with a color bar, request a digital file from Image Services.