Lions

Lions (獅子図) is a [sumi](/glossary/sumi)-and-colour-on-paper composition by Kanō Hōgai dated to about 1886 and held by the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (accession J00743). The subject — a pair of lions, often a male and female with cub — was a standard Buddhist and Confucian motif in East Asian painting, derived ultimately from Chinese imperial guardian sculpture and adopted by the Kanō school as a vehicle for displaying its mastery of expressive animal painting on a grand scale. Hōgai's treatment shows the lions among rocky outcrops, the principal beast in three-quarter view with massive musculature, mane built up in dense calligraphic strokes, and an expression that combines Kanō ferocity with the close anatomical observation characteristic of Hōgai's late period. The painting is contemporary with the Niō Seizing an Evil Spirit, also in the National Museum of Modern Art, and shares its synthesis of Kanō figural convention with the Western anatomical and atmospheric handling Hōgai had developed under Ernest Fenollosa from 1882 onward. The two paintings together represent the canonical late Hōgai treatments of guardian and powerful-animal subjects on Japanese soil and are core holdings of the museum's collection of foundational Meiji painting.