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Dragon and Tiger
About the Artwork
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).
Provenance
H. Mitsui; C. Satomi. ?-1959: (Howard Hollis and Co., Cleveland, OH, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1959-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, 1959-present
Exhibition history
Japanese Decorative Style. The Cleveland Museum of Art (August 30-October 15, 1961); The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (November 9-December 17, 1961). Juxtapositions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (September 11-October 10, 1965). Japanese Screens from the Museum and Cleveland Collections. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 23-May 8, 1977). Byobu: The Art of the Japanese Screen. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (August 1-October 14, 1984). Japanese Ink Painting. Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, Japan (organizer) (October 13-November 23, 1987). Screen Paintings of the Muromachi Period. Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, Japan (March 28-May 7, 1989). Asian Autumn: Masterpieces from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 17, 1991-January 5, 1992). Highlights of Asian Paintings from The Cleveland Museum of Art. Nara National Museum (organizer) (February 21-March 29, 1998); Suntory Museum of Art (April 28-June 21, 1998). Streams and Mountains Without End: Asian Art and the Legacy of Sherman E. Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 27-August 23, 2009). Admired from Afar: Masterworks of Japanese Painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, Japan (January 15-February 23, 2014); Kyushu National Museum, Fukuoka, Japan (July 8-August 31, 2014).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Sesson Shūkei (Japanese, c. 1492–c. 1577)
- Date
- c. 1546–56
- Medium
- Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink on paper
- Dimensions
- 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.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Japanese Art
- Credit line
- Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Accession no.
- 1959.136
More by Sesson Shūkei in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00009368
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