DRAGONS and Cliches

 

WHAT ? I put the word cliche in the same sentence as dragon?

There are certain layouts and rendering styles that appear over and over again in East Asian painting when dragons are depicted. 

This example is an 18th century Japanese painting and when an excellent skilled work there are certain aspects only obvious if you have seen a lot of Japanese art especially art of the KANO school.

First of all there's the use of just one tint in the background with Mt Fuji being depicted as just an outline against a gray sky. This motif is used in dozens of other paintings and prints.

Then there's the dark clouds. The painter has perhaps tried a bit too hard to show his control over the flow of ink by using the clouds to emphasize the dragon and of course the beloved S curve composition though to be fair its beautiful skilled rendering and suggests the dragon is creating rain clouds so it moves across the sky. 

The dragon however is one that could have appeared in dozens of other works, Chinese or Japanese, and possibly also has a message that the artist had the opportunity and privilege and connections to travel around the country studying various private collections artists not of the Kano or affiliated schools would have had access to. 

Its a good painting but its very much the equivalent of say 19th Academy art in Europe. 

The artist has obviously studied the approved models for dragons. 

Now to test you. 

What do you think is the signifiance of the dragon only having THREE toes ?

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