Mythological beasts (longma, dragon, pheonix and flowering tendrils)

In 2016 Te Papa acquired three historical Japanese paintings: a small <em>ukiyo-e</em> painting of a rat dressed as a <em>daimyō</em> or feudal lord (Te Papa 2016-0008-64) and two <em>sumi-e</em> ink paintings in the Chinese style. Tastes and practices in the visual arts of Japan had long drawn on inspirational precedents in Chinese visual culture – nowhere more evident than in the development of Japanese calligraphy and <em>sumi-e</em> ink painting.

One <em>sumi-e</em> is unsigned but bears the seal of Kanō Tsunenobu (1636–1713), son of Kanō Naonobu (1607–50) and who assumed nominal leadership of the Kanō school from 1674. Its Chinese roots are evident in Tsunenobu’s fluent linear detail, flowing movement and monochrome veils of transparent ink. As in his larger scrolls and screen paintings, that descriptive linear virtuosity lent Tsunenobu’s subjects a convincing sense of naturalism, while his variegations of intensity and breadth of line, and plays on transparency of pigment, generated an expressive ‘spirit resonance’ vitality and an atmospheric, theatrical air. Chinese sources also informed his subject choices: a <em>long</em> (dragon), flying above a phoenix, and a <em>longma</em> or ‘dragonhorse’, with curling tendrils intruding into the picture space at the upper edge.

There is no reason to suggest that Tsunenobu conceived this work as a resolved composition; rather, it seems to have been developed as several discrete drawings around related mythological themes, perhaps as examples for Tsunenobu’s own students. The <em>longma</em> is a mythical Pegasus-like creature,a winged horse with dragon scales. Seeing a <em>longma</em> presaged one of the exemplary wise kings, the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. More generally, the term was used to refer to an eminent person, wise in their old age.

In Chinese tradition, the mythological phoenix (in China <em>feng huang</em>, in Japan <em>hō-ō</em>) is thought to embody a yin–yang balance in its <em>feng</em>/male and <em>huang</em>/female duality. In both China and Japan, it signified celestial bodies, and in Japan it also alluded to the imperial household, the sun, and to qualities of fidelity, obedience, justice, honesty and integrity. The <em>hō-ō</em> appeared rarely, at the beginning of a new era or in times of peace and prosperity. The phoenix and the dragon are often pictured together, either as enemies or as wedded lovers.

The dragon, in Japan <em>tatsu</em>, <em>ryū</em> or <em>Nihon no ryū</em>, is associated with water and rainfall. It appears as a water serpent from the earliest histories, the <em>Kojiki</em> (680 CE) and the <em>Nihongi</em> (720 CE), and appears in many forms, as <em>Yamata no orochi</em>, the eight-branched giant snake slain by Susanoo, god of wind and sea, for example, or as the <em>mizuchi</em> river dragon and water deity. The shiryū, or four dragon kings – Gōkō, Gōkin, Gōjun and Gōjun, dragon kings of the East, South, West and North Seas respectively – were believed to rule the four seas. Japanese dragons are associated with both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples; the popular <em>kinryū-no-mai</em> ‘golden dragon dance’, for example, is performed twice a year at Sensō-ji in Asakusa.

Source: David Bell, 'Floating world at Te Papa: the Heriot collection', <em>Tuhinga</em>, 30 (2019), pp. 56-81.

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art    May 2019