Soga Shohaku: Ranzan Dragon in the Cloud

Catalog note / 解説

An enigmatic and unclassifiable artist who took the name Soga from Soga Jasoku, a fifteenth-century artist. He lived in Kyoto and is known to have abhored Okyo. Although admired for his dynamic brushwork by his contemporaries, he was considered – if not mad – certainly very eccentric. Now widely admired with many copies. Shows the Dragon of the Storm. 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. What could be a hackneyed subject – especially in Kishi hands – but here transformed by the sheer brilliance of the brushwo…