How does the mother tiger safely manage to ferry all of the three cubs across
the mountain river without leaving the naughty one alone with the sibling?
Hello I'm Tim Clark, a curator in the Asia department. Welcome to my corner!
When I first saw this painting I didn't know what this subject was. It was only later when
I was talking to a professor in Japan that he told me it's a classical Chinese
subject. It was in fact a writer - Chinese writer called Zhu Mi who first recorded this subject
in a text of the 13th century the late Song dynasty in China.
So even though this is an ancient Chinese subject the painting was actually made
in Japan in the late 18th century by an artist called Maruyama Ōkyo. Ōkyo was a major figure in
Japanese painting at the time and revolutionized Japanese painting in some very important ways;
some of which are visible in the screen. First is the sense of deep space in the composition. The
sense that the water is actually flowing towards us; taking us into the space of the painting.
And another thing is the sense of lively observation of these tigers and their behaviour;
this sense of naturalism which Ōkyo brings to his works. We know that Ōkyo drew from life and
encouraged his pupils to do so. And very close sense of observation in which we see a snarling
tiger. A tiger carrying across the river and then sitting contentedly on the far bank
licking its paws. But it's quite likely that Ōkyo never saw a live tiger because there were no
live tigers in Japan. So there's probably a sense in which he's
closely observing the behaviour of cats and then projecting that onto his grand subject of tigers.
But we have no evidence that Ōkyo the painter of this screen actually ever saw a live tiger.
What he did see were hundreds of Chinese paintings of tigers and that takes us back to
China as being this great source of cultural reference for people in Japan at the time.
Also coming to Japan were tiger skins and when people look at Japanese paintings of
tigers they often comment on how the heads are sometimes rather flat. And one theory is
that artists are often working from flattened out tiger skins rather than the live animals.
The fur effect has been built up by having probably a layer of white to start with then
blocking out with a layer of white then overlaying that with some of the colours and then finally
this very painstaking effect of painting the individual hairs of the fur. So for the stripes
of the tiger for instance you'd have a black wash forming the shape of the stripe and then
above that you have very painstaking layering of black hairs some white hairs some orange hairs and
even when you look closely some gold mixed in amongst the fur to add to the sense of luxury.
So one of my favourite passages in the painting is where the fur has become wet and matted on the
mother's chest as she's crossing the river and I can't imagine how complicated it was
to achieve that effect of the matted fur on the mother's chest. The challenge for the mother tiger
is how to get her three cubs safely across this fast flowing mountain river. It's a moment of
danger for the family the additional challenge for the mother is that she knows that one of these
tiger cubs; the naughty one - this is the naughty one next to me here - if she leaves it alone
with its siblings it will attack them. So how does the mother tiger safely manage to ferry all of the
three cubs across the mountain river without leaving the naughty one alone with a sibling?
I'll tell you the answer: She starts by taking the naughty one across the river on its own
she then goes back without a cub picks up the second cub carries it across leaves it picks
up the naughty one again carries it back leaves the naughty one on its own picks up the third
cub carries it across and then she can go back and get the naughty one so she's never left the
naughty one on its own with the others. Screens like this are very common in large Japanese
mansions of the period; we're talking about the 18th century here and something of this interest
would have undoubtedly been used in one of the more public spaces one of the grand reception
rooms. Maybe it was the house of a samurai lord or one of the aristocracy the imperial
court in Kyoto. And when you went into a grand reception room this would be part of the furniture
that was greeting you. A screen like this with a gold leaf background forms a very important
function of generating or being the focus of the light in a traditional Japanese interior. If
you think of traditional Japanese palace rooms or temple rooms often you have the shoji paper doors
closed sometimes beyond that you have the wooden rain shutters closed so often the interiors can
be quite dark. So by using strategically placed pieces of furniture such as the gold leaf screen
you can pick up whatever light there is in the interior and reflect it back off the screen.
Then of course after dark when you start to introduce generally oil lamps into the interior
they too will project light that reflects off the gold screen and becomes the focus of the room.
So the screen was acquired by the British Museum in 2006, purchased from a dealer in
Japan and the Art Fund contributed a major grant so that we're able to acquire it. Investigating
the provenance of the painting we found a little collector's seal stuck to the back of the screen
and it turned out to be the collector's seal of a man called Hara Sankei and Hara Sankei was
a wealthy industrialist. He married into a family of silk exporters and became extremely
wealthy and he was collecting major works of Japanese art in the early 20th century.
And we can even take the history of the screen back a little bit further it was reproduced in
an art magazine actually a photograph unusually was reproduced in the magazine in 1895.
So the definite history of the screen goes right back to 1895 just over a century after the work
was painted. I'm always thrilled when I walk through the gallery and see the screen to know
that we have such a major work by an important figure in the history of Japanese painting
and one that anybody no matter where they come from in the world can relate to. The screen is
shown regularly in our Mitsubishi Corporation Japanese Galleries at the British Museum where
it's very popular with the public. I'm very proud that we have in the British Museum Collection
a major work by such an important figure in Japanese art history and personally I just
enjoy the way in which the tigers engage with us staring out at us and inviting us into their world