Discussion

Tigers have long been representative of strength, power, and ferocity. Lions may be the king of the beasts, but tigers are generally more respected and feared.

Regardless, tigers are an endangered species with roughly 5,000 remaining alive in the wild. Greater numbers live in captivity around the world. The primary reason for the diminished size of the wild population is habitat destruction. Since the early 20th century, tigers have lost 93% of their range. They now exist only in isolated pockets from Siberia to India to Indochina and Sumatra.

There are six species of tiger extant today.

One type of tiger not shown in this chart is what appears in the photo below to be albino tigers.

They are not albinos but the deliberate result of human crossbreeding. Such animals have serious genetic defects and are not viable as a separate species.

Human crossbreeding between between tigers and lions have produced ligers (male lion and female tiger) and tigons (male tiger and female lion). For conservation purposes, such crossbreeding is discouraged today.

This photo is of a liger.

And this is a tigon.

Artwork

Chinese and Japanese artists have long been fascinated with tigers. Japanese military classes liked tiger paintings because of the power such images represented. They were also thought to repel evil. Tiger paintings were often paired with paintings of dragons, thought to attract good fortune. Because of that fascination, I have an unusually large collection of classical examples of this week's painting subject to show. This is a small sampling of Japanese tiger paintings available.

Established in the 15th century, Japan's Kanō school of art lasted over 400 years, catering primarily to the tastes of military rulers and associated Zen temples. The pair of 6-fold byōbu below was painted by Kano Sanraku (1559 - 1635) sometime early in the 17th century. They are located in Kyōto's Myoshinji temple.

Here is a closer look at the tiger and companion.

Kano Tan’yū (1602 - 1674) was the most influential member of the Kanō school after its main headquarters moved from Kyōto to Edo in the early 17th century. His Tigers in a Bamboo Grove (Tigers at Play), painted on a 4-panel fusuma (sliding panel) in the mid-1630s, is located in Nanzenji Temple in Kyōto.

Here is a detail from the picture above.

Itō Jakuchū (1716 - 1800) was raised as a grocer until he turned his father's store over to his brothers in 1755 and became a fulltime artist. Though he trained some in the Kanō school, he took much of his inspiration from nature based on actual observation, though some of his paintings were of fantastic creatures like his 1755 tiger below. Jakuchū is generally classified as a literati intellectual artist today.

Maruyama Ōkyo (1733 - 1795) studied various styles of painting--the most influential being the Kanō school--before establishing the Shijō school of art in Kyōto (also known as the Mauryama school). His primary patrons were rich merchants in the Kyōto/Osaka area. He painted the pair of 2-fold byōbu screens below in 1781.

One of the most famous ukiyo-e artists of Japan's Edo period was Kitagawa Utamaro (1753 - 1806). Primarily known for paintings of women in Japan's version of the demimonde, Utamaro painted other subjects, too, as shown by his tiger below. The year it was painted is unknown.

Katsushika Hokusai (1760 - 1849). Toward the end of his life, Hokusai became fascinated with tigers and produced a number of paintings of them. His Tiger in the Snow below, painted the year of his death, is one of his last paintings--some think it is his very last.

In that same year (1849), Chō-ō Buntoku (?) painted another pair of 6-fold byōbu featuring tigers and a dragon. Little information is available about him.

The last tiger picture I have was painted by Ohara Koson (1877 - 1945) in 1910. Koson was a prominent member of the shin-hanga movement to restore traditional values and methods to Japanese art that had been largely abandoned in the rush to adopt newly available western painting styles after Japan ended its isolation in 1868.