Dragon and Tiger
Medium
Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink on paper
Dimensions
framed: 172.3 × 354 cm · each: 157.3 × 339 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Japanese Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Accession Number
1959.136
Tags
About this 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 t...