Benten with a Dragon

BENTEN with a DRAGON

A pleasingly elegant image of Benten the Japanese Buddhist equivalent of Sarasvati riding a dragon while playing her lute. 

Dragon Head Vase.

#dragon vase

TANG DYNASTY VASE WITH DRAGON HEAD HANDLES

We're so used with seeing dragons painted with cobalt blue on a white background but this plain sculptural use of just heads on the handles of this vase seems rather stark by contrast to the cloud dancing blue dragons of later ceramics. Simple but beautiful! Enjoy.

Kano Hogai - 2 dragons

#kano #dragons #japanese painting

TWO DRAGONS FIGHTING

I promised to identify the 3 artworks I shared in the last post. Here is the first.

This is one of those Kano paintings that could almost be mistaken for a Chinese work from a Ming or even Sung artist however it is Japanese a work by Kano Hogai depicting two dragons fighting.

A Choice of 3 Dragons

Here's a choice and test of three dragons.
Which of these comes from which Asian nation?

None of these were created in China. 

Over the next month I'll  tell you more details about them and other dragon art.

Let Us Consider Dragons

 Let Us Consider Dragons 

#dragons #chineseart 

My next sequence of posts will be about Dragons - 龍

You may have seen Dragons painted with cobalt blue in a white background. Its a common motif !

The image above is of a vessel created in the XuanDe Dynasty - an actual antiques and not one of the many modern copies and variants thereof.

However images of dragons appear thousands of years earlier. 

These are Oracle Bone characters.

Note the shape and size of the head. Jaws and a Crest or a Long head are always emphasized.

As in this Han Dynasty image 

Join me next time for more dragon images. Not just Chinese! I've also found dragons from Japan Korea and Vietnam to share with you. 

 

AUGUST 2020 THEMES

The theme for AUGUST 2020 will be Dragons !