1885

Two Dragons (in Clouds)

Japanese, 1828 - 1888

Educator and collector Ernest Fenollosa installed this monumental painting by Kano Hōgai in his home in Tokyo, where it held pride of place. The artist’s highly naturalistic rendering of intertwined dragons reflects a fusion of East and West. While the subject of dragons dates back to ancient China, the three-dimensionality and foreshortening of the animals’ forms reflect Hōgai’s familiarity with the Western use of perspective.