Rosetsu Tiger

 #rosetsu #tiger #yearofthetiger

If there's one subject Chinese and Japanese painters did not excel at sadly it's depicting tigers.

This is a South Chinese Tiger 
Thank you whoever added this to Wikimedia Commons!

BUT 

Chinese artists even centuries ago when the tiger population was much larger do not seen to have studied tigers in the wild or captivity?

There are various reasons for this.

Tigers are usually nocturnal hunters that hunt as individuals for in VERY small family groups and seem to prefer forests though its possible this is an adaptation to avoiding humans. 

In China the South China tiger population was shrinking for centuries and took a further down turn during the Qing dynasty when rifles were introduced and there's an ongoing debate as to how many Tigers survive in ANY part of CHINA in the wild. Some probably do. The ones who have learnt to avoid humans!

There were probably tigers in some parts of the north but again forest clearing and hunting by humans.

I do wonder if there were once "white" tigers in the parts of China near Tibet given the White Tiger of the West?

Tigers despite the Japanese having a word for tiger don't seem to have ever lived in Japan. 

However Japanese artists seen to have seen imported tiger skins but thought of tigers as very large cats?

You may have seen other cropped photos of this painting by Nagasawa Rosetsu that do not show how large the screen painting is. Rosetsu's tiger is a splendid energetic beast indeed larger than life but no more housecat though with this and other images I suspect a study of house cats.

As its the year of the Tiger I will be sharing more Tiger Art as I find it.

Do consider following me for more ?

The Xibeigang Tigers

#Chinesesculpture #sculpture #tigers  #marble #xibeigang #shang

This marble slab carved with two tigers is from a ancient royal tomb not a temple. The use of marble is unusual for Chinese sculpture.

It does illustrate an abiding tendency for Chinese sculptures to work in a raised relief style even when doing large monumental works. One often gets the feeling looking at large chinese sculptures particularly some WEI dynasty pieces that the sculptors and stone masons were given a line sketch and told make this #3D for a tomb/ temple or however you would say that in Ancient China.

The sculptor was rendered the tiger in a stylised manner that reminds me of taotie masks on bronzes.

I wonder if they opted for marble because jade boulders of that size were not available but the rulers commissioning the tomb insisted on a pale color stone?

The trend of using marble didn't last for long. 

Carvers stonemasons and sculptors seem to be have preferred wood and jade and smaller stones until there was another sculpture revival in the WEI dynasty.

I suspect people who had the talent and skills and hand to eye co-ordination to be good carvers were put to use creating the fine details for the molds for casting bronzes for the courts or incising lines to inlay color on lacquer objects and of course shaping jade and other stones into pi discs!

However there are many noteworthy chinese sculptures which we will be taking a look at in the next series of posts.