modern Soga Shohaku

Catalog note / 解説

A large painting for the year of the Dragon 1880 ( Meiji 13 ). Suzuki Shonen was a major Kyoto-based Nihonga artist of the late Meiji period. The son of Suzuki Hyakunen, the founder of the Suzuki school of painting, whom he succeeded. He seems to have been a somewhat flamboyant character and was known as the “modern Soga Shohaku.” Shows the Dragon of the Storm descending above turbulent water. A mythological creature that dominated Chinese and Japanese art. It was a scaly four-legged serpent with dorsal spines, the head having two horns, long feelers, and flame-like streamers at the shoulders and hind quarters. Painted in sumi with light touches of red on paper. Image size 56 x 25 in; 143 x…