Tigers and Bamboo,

18th century

A tiger emerges from a bamboo thicket while another sits and roars. As gods of the mountain, they were considered to have the power to make wind blow and were often contrasted with dragons, gods of the sky, who could make rain fall. The belief that tigers inhabited bamboo groves is reflected in the Golden Light Sutra, a sacred text of Buddhism. In China and Japan, images of tigers and bamboo groves were thought to be auspicious. Because the great cats are not indigenous to Japan, the artist(s) responsible for this painting must have learned about their appearance through other images or animal pelts imported from China and Korea.