Lions and Tigers in Peony and Bamboo
Sekkei lived and studied painting in Kyoto at the Kano school studio, the center of traditional painting activity in Japan since 1500. The use of gold foil as a backdrop for the frolicking animals served a practical as well as a decorative function. Because traditional Japanese rooms had no windows, interior lighting came from portable oil lamps and wax candles, whose effects were magnified by reflective surfaces.
Colors in this work
Details
- Date
- 1668
- Dimensions
- image: height 1.49 m, width 3.3 m
- Department
- Japanese Art
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Palette
-
Select a color to find related artworks.
- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- John L. Severance Fund
Art Genome Taxonomy
12 tags
Subject Matter
Visual Qualities
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Earth Tones Visual · 98%
The image is dominated by ochre, brown, muted green, cream, and black against a warm gold ground.
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Highly Detailed Visual · 93%
Fine marks describe fur, spots, stripes, facial features, claws, bamboo joints, leaves, and rocky surfaces.
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Asymmetrical Visual · 97%
The animals and vegetation are concentrated toward the left and center, while the right panels contain substantially more open gold space.
Medium and Techniques
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Painting Metadata · 99%
The Cleveland Museum of Art classifies the work as a painting and identifies its medium as ink and color on gilded paper.
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Screen Format Metadata · 99%
The object is one of a pair of six-panel folding screens.
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Gold Leaf and Gilding Both · 99%
The museum identifies the support as gilded paper, and the image clearly shows a broad gold ground across the panels.
Time Periods
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17th Century Art Metadata · 99%
The work is dated 1668, placing it in the seventeenth century.
Geographic Regions
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Japanese Art Metadata · 99%
The work is identified as Japanese Art and originated in Japan during the Edo period.
Materials
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Use of Paper Metadata · 96%
The stated medium is ink and color on paper, supporting the use-of-paper material tag.
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Gold Metadata · 96%
The museum describes the work as executed on gilded paper, with gold foil used as the backdrop.
Source & rights
Yamaguchi Sekkei (Japanese, 1644–1732). Lions and Tigers in Peony and Bamboo. Cleveland Museum of Art.
High-resolution sources
- Original TIFF ↗ 15,767 × 7,784 · Cleveland Museum Of Art · Available