id: 135593 accession number: 1959.136.1 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1959.136.1 updated: 2023-03-20 14:14:12.813000 Dragon and Tiger, c. 1546–56. Sesson Shūkei (Japanese, c. 1492–c. 1577). 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.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1959.136.1 title: Dragon and Tiger title in original language: 龍虎図屏風 series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1546–56 creation date earliest: 1546 creation date latest: 1556 current location: creditline: Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund copyright: --- culture: Japan, Muromachi period (1392-1573) to Momoyama period (1573-1615) technique: One of a pair of six-panel folding screens; ink on paper department: Japanese Art collection: ASIAN - Folding screen type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Sesson Shūkei (Japanese, c. 1492–c. 1577) - artist --- measurements: 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.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Japanese Decorative Style opening date: 1961-08-30T04:00:00 Japanese Decorative Style. The Cleveland Museum of Art (August 30-October 15, 1961); The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (November 6-December 17, 1961). title: Japanese Ink Painting opening date: 1987-10-13T04:00:00 Japanese Ink Painting. Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, Japan (organizer) (October 13-November 23, 1987). title: Highlights of Asian Paintings from The Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 1998-02-21T00:00:00 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). title: Streams and Mountains Without End: Asian Art and the Legacy of Sherman E. Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2009-06-27T04:00:00 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). title: Admired from Afar: Masterworks of Japanese Painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2014-01-15T00:00:00 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). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Japanese Ink Paintings from American Collections: The Muromachi period: An exhibition in honor of Shūjirō Shimada. The Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ (April 25–June 13, 1976). --- PROVENANCE H. Mitsui; C. Satomi. date: footnotes: citations: (Howard Hollis and Co., Cleveland, OH, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) date: ?-1959 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, 1959-present date: 1959- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: 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. digital 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. wall description: This screen with a dragon and its pair with a tiger together represent the elements of water and wind in Chinese cosmology: the dragon’s swirling form conjures rain clouds, and the tiger embodies the wind’s terrible, unpredictable force. Former CMA director Sherman Lee found in Sesson’s paintings intimations of a developing Japanese style distinct from Chinese predecessors. Here, parody and pattern are at the forefront. The formidable, awe-inspiring tiger takes on the demeanor of a curious house cat, and a once-snarling dragon’s face morphs into an oddly befuddled human expression. Such exaggerated, humorously rendered faces suggest a gentle domestication of these primal forces. Lee described Sesson’s work as inhabiting a world of aesthetic awareness, in which brushstroke and pattern are primary and where waves are "arranged in graceful and rhythmically repetitive reflex curves, primarily decorative shapes and only secondarily water and foam." --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Japan. Commission imperiale a l"Exposition universelle de Paris, 1900. . Kōhon Nihon Teikoku bijutsu ryakushi. Tōkyō: Nihon Bijutsusha, 1908. page number: Mentioned: [p. 160]; Reproduced: p. 161 url: Lee, Sherman E. Japanese Decorative Style. [Cleveland]: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1961. page number: Mentioned: p. 50; reproduced: 51; cat. no. 47 url: https://archive.org/details/JapaneseDecorativeStyle/page/n64 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. page number: Reproduced: p. 279 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n303 The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. page number: Reproduced: p. 279 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n303 Shimizu, Yoshiaki, and Carolyn Wheelwright. Japanese Ink Paintings from American Collections: The Muromachi Period: an Exhibition in Honor of Shūjirō Shimada. Princeton, NJ: Art Museum, Princeton University: Distributed by Princeton University Press, 1976. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 27, pp. 206–211 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. page number: Reproduced: p. 377 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n397 Lee, Sherman E, Ursula Korneitchouk, Michael R Cunningham, Ursula Korneitchouk, Cleveland Museum of Art, Japan House Gallery, Japan Society (New York, N.Y.), and Japan House Gallery. One Thousand Years of Japanese Art (650-1650): From the Cleveland Museum of Art: Catalogue. New York: Japan Society, 1981. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 68-69, no. 36 url: Tōyō kaiga no seika: tokubetsuten: Kurīvurando Bijutsukan no korekushon kara [東洋絵画の精華: 特别展: クリーヴラント美術館のコレクションから= Highlights of Asian painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art]. Nara, Japan: Nara National Museum, 1998. page number: Reproduced: p.114-115, cat. no. 76 url: Cunningham, Michael R. Unfolding Beauty: Japanese Screens from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. page number: Reproduced: pp. 14-15 url: Admired from afar: masterworks of Japanese painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art [クリーブランド美術館展 : 名画でたどる日本の美 Kurīburando Bijutsukan ten: meiga de tadoru Nihon no bi ]. Tokyo: Tōkyō Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan, 2014. page number: Reproduced: cat. no. 28, p. 84, 86 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1959.136.1/1959.136.1_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1959.136.1/1959.136.1_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1959.136.1/1959.136.1_full.tif