# Dragon and Tiger, in Sesson Shūkei

Sesson Shūkei painted this in about 1546–56, aged about 42. It is now at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

From the museum's label:

> 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).

_Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art._

[Read the full label](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/dragon-and-tiger-cma-135592#about-work)

## The work

- 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
- Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1959.136
- Licence: CC0 1.0

## The artist

[Sesson Shūkei](https://www.ochreeditions.com/artists/sesson-shukei), ca. 1504–ca. 1589

Sesson was a Zen monk who worked in the provinces of eastern Japan, far from the capital at Kyoto. He admired the ink painter Sesshū and developed a vigorous, highly personal style of monochrome ink painting, marked by windswept landscapes, swirling water and lively figures.

3 works in the collection.

## Walk on

- [Sesson Shūkei's contemporaries](https://www.ochreeditions.com/galleries/artist/contemporaries-of-sesson-shukei?hang=750) (8 works)
- [More Japanese painting](https://www.ochreeditions.com/galleries/style/japanese-painting?hang=750) (76 works)
- [16th-century Japan](https://www.ochreeditions.com/galleries/era/16-japan?hang=750) (8 works)

## Get it

- [Print this work](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/dragon-and-tiger-cma-135592#print)
- Free download, full resolution: https://img.ochreeditions.com/m/634.jpg?dl=1
- [The work's page](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/dragon-and-tiger-cma-135592)