Dragon and Tiger
Sesson Shūkei (Japanese, c. 1492–c. 1577)
c. 1546–56
- Medium
- One of a pair of six-panel folding screens; ink on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- 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.)
- Culture
- Japan, Muromachi period (1392–1573) to Momoyama period (1573–1615)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Japanese Art
- Credit line
- Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
In Chinese cosmology, the tiger's roar is said to produce wind. In Chinese paintings, the tiger is often shown with a dragon, who creates rain clouds. Together, they represent the balancing forces of the universe. Chinese presentations of the theme, often in hanging scroll format, provided the basic composition for the pair of screens to which this one belongs.