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.