Tiger

A tiger crawls through a ravine, hugging its body close to the ground. It looks up at its prey with piercing yellow eyes. The water running past its right front paw looks like abstract mounds, lying in sharp contrast to the craggy rockface dotted with green moss on which the tiger prowls.

Kishi Renzan (1804-1859) studied painting under Ganku (1756-1839), a Kyoto-based painter known for his depiction of tigers. Ganku in particular was known to have studied the physical form of tigers by acquiring a tiger’s skull through Chinese merchants and laying a tiger pelt over it. Renzan was Ganku’s adopted son and eventually became the head of the Kishi school founded by Ganku. He is known for paintings of animals based on observation.