Dragon-Painting by Tani BunchoAuthor(s): Basil GraySource: The British Museum Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 1 (Sep., 1934), pp. 2-3Published by: British MuseumStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4421655 .

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by Martin, op. cit., i, Fig. 39), after an original by Bihzrd that turned up at the Persian Exhibition of i931 (no. 490), showing modifications in taste which are similar to those made in our drawing compared with the Leningrad Muhammadi.

The drawing is of value as representing this short vigorous period and also for its subject. The scene represented is a mystical dance of dervishes dressed in goat-skins. As Arnold pointed out, such practices have not been regarded with favour by most Muhamme- dans. It may be added that they represent one of those borrowings from older cults of which many have been made at different times by professors of Islam in Persia, under cover of mysticism.

B. GRAY. 2. DRAGON-PAINTING BY TANI BUNCHO.

A JAPANESE painting, lately acquired, must rank as one of the most imposing in the Museum collection. Its great size

(4 ft. x 5 ft. io? in.) and the majesty of the subject seem to destine it for public exhibition. Tani Buncho, in Japan the most famous artist of the first half of the nineteenth century, was fully equal to painting on so large a scale. He was accustomed to working on the screens and sliding doors of great houses and temples, and in the Museum painting (P1. II) he has drawn with equal decision the storm-cloud which partly hides the dragon and his scales and claws. The dragon is one of the traditional subjects of Chinese and so of Japanese painting, representing, as it does, an expression of spiritual power, and it has been treated by nearly all the great masters of both countries. Buncho, who was born in 1763 and lived and worked till 1841, was trained in the Kano tradition, with which such a subject would be a commonplace, but he was greatly affected by the new waves of Chinese influence then spreading across Japan. By the strength of his personality he was able, to some extent, to fuse these styles, though he may be justly described as eclectic, now painting in the older Chinese blue and green landscape style intro- duced into fashion by Taigado, now dashing off a memory sketch like the Chrysanthemums of the Museum collection. In this new example he shows that he can execute a large and finished painting without losing the qualities of vigour and immediate inspiration of

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II. DRAGON BY TANI BUNCHO

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a sketch. Such an achievement is only possible for a painter using the Oriental technique of the ink painting on paper.

The painting comes from the collection of Sir Edward James Reed (i830-I906), the naval architect, and was probably given to him by the Imperial Government during his official visit to Japan in 1879. It is signed in a convincing manner, and it may be noted that the seal used is the same as that which appears on some sliding screens in the Honks-ji Temple, Shizuoka-ken, reproduced in the number of the Bijutsu Kenkyn for June 1934. B. GRAY.

3. A DRAWING BY RUBENS.

T HIS fine study (P1. III) was presented to the Department of Prints and Drawings by Lady Beit and Sir Alfred Beit, Bart.

It measures 171 in. in height by I 'i in. in width, is drawn on light brown paper in black chalk, and is heightened with white chalk. It bears the marks of Sir Peter Lely and Sir Joshua Reynolds and was subsequently in the collections of J. Mayer of Liverpool (Sale, Sotheby's, 22 July 1887, lot 537) and Mr. Arnett Hibbert and Mr. J. V. Hibbert. It is the study of the torso of a man; the head is thrown back, the legs are drawn up, and the right arm hangs down. It was the modelling of the torso in which the artist was interested; the head and legs are only roughly outlined.

What was the purpose for which Rubens made this powerful and characteristic study? At first sight it is reminiscent of the contorted and agonized figures hurtling through space in the Fall of the Rebel Angels or the Last Judgement. But even if it is turned upside down the figure does not give the impression of one falling. The head and torso look as if they had been forced back and the legs as if they had been drawn up in agony. The position of the figure is in fact that of the impenitent thief in the picture of the Crucifixion ('Le coup de lance') in the Antwerp Gallery, though the body is seen from a different point of view and is turned to the left instead of to the right. It may have been a preliminary study for this figure before the exact arrangement had been fixed, or a study for some other crucified thief in a composition which was never carried out. A study which resembles it in intention and in technique

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