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nately, the movable paintings such as the The theme of the tiger, often paired 128 Reeds and geese
sliding doors had been evacuated, and 662 with the dragon, appeared in ink paintings Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645)
works survived the bombing. All are regis- throughout the Muromachi period. Al- pair of six-fold screens; ink on paper
tered as Important Cultural Properties. though the theme was Chinese and Daoist each 155.5 361.5 (6i /4 x 1423/8)
l
x
The First Room (ichinoma) and the Sec- in origin—the forces that cause clouds and Edo period, after 1640
ond Room (ninoma) were decorated with winds to rise—the Japanese fascination
twenty paintings of tigers, leopards, and with the subject was largely inspired by Eisei Bunko, Tokyo
bamboo on gold-leaf grounds mounted on the famous Tiger paired with the Dragon Important Cultural Property
the sliding doors and intercolumnar walls. by the Chinese painter Muqi of the late Unsigned and without the artist's seals,
This set of paintings is from the smaller Southern Song, once in the shogunal col- this pair of screens can be attributed to
ichinoma and is among the eighteen ex- lection. In the sixteenth century a Kano Miyamoto Musashi, or Niten, his artistic
tant works from those rooms. school painter, perhaps Shóei (1519-1592), sobriquet. Musashi, perhaps the greatest
Two different hands are identifiable made a monumental ink painting of a tiger swordsman of his time, was known for his
in the two rooms. The artist of the and a leopard to decorate the walls of invincible martial art using two swords.
ichinoma is the more experienced of the chambers adjacent to the chapel at Jukôin, Born in Harima (part of today's Hyógo
two, possibly Kano Kôi (d. 1636). He was a subtemple of Daitokuji. To portray the Prefecture) in 1584 (or 1582), he was a
the mentor of the much younger but more animals against a gold-leaf ground in a youth during the turbulent years that saw
famous Kano Tan'yü (1602-1674), to whom large public space, was new in the seven- warfare ravaging the countryside and the
is ascribed a set of twenty sliding door pan- teenth century. Here the tigers, and no appearance of the military hegemons, in-
els of tigers, leopards, and bamboo in the less the leopards, are no longer an embodi- cluding Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Toku-
smaller residential quarters at Nanzenji, ment of the mysterious force of the uni- gawa leyasu. In 1600 Musashi fought on
executed around 1637 or 1638. The style of verse that causes the wind to rise, but the losing side of the Western Army at the
the Nanzenji sliding doors compares down-to-earth, tactile symbols of the war- Battle of Sekigahara (cat. 104) and became
closely to that of this set, and thus its attri- rior class. YS a masterless samurai, or rdnin. He spent
bution to Kói may be accepted. The artist the next thirty-seven years as a wanderer.
of the ninoma remains unidentified. He is said to have won over sixty duels
during these peripatetic years, including

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