1500: Year of the tiger (Seikaku)
A tiger family, the father fierce-looking, the mother serene, the three cubs frolicking, is surrounded by the usual symbols of good fortune, from the red Mount Fuji in the background to the treasure in the foreground: gold coins, red coral, the mallet of good fortune, and so on. Other omens include the trio of pine, bamboo, and plum blossom, and a pair of faithful cranes.
No biographical details, but the artist Mori Seikaku specialises in animal and flower scroll paintings. He signs his work the traditional way, with the characters for his given (brush) name, Seikaku (lit. 'nest of the crane') and a seal of the same.
This puzzle has smaller pieces than the standard size.
|
1000: Good luck tiger family (Kazumi)
A tiger family, mother and three cubs, surrounded by the usual auspicious trio of pine, bamboo, and plum, the red sun in the sky...
Izumi Kazumi is an animal artist who graduated from Osaka University fine arts department in 1984. Izumi is her family name.
|
What is this "Lucky"?
There is a great tradition in Japan of paintings combining elements considered to bring good fortune. Some of these themes are obvious enough, such as Mt. Fuji, or the characters of the twelve-year Chinese calendar cycle, but others rely on wordplay in Japanese. For example, nanten, the plant sometimes known as "Heavenly bamboo", sounds the same as Chinese characters nan meaning "troubles", and ten meaning "to (over)turn", so it has gained an association with overcoming difficulties. This is rather as if in English-speaking countries we painted four people playing the flute, and said it meant "four-tune".
The philosophical underpinnings of all this are rather diffuse. There does not seem to be any direct connection to Buddhism, but ancient Chinese mythology, and miscellaneous folk beliefs have all been brought into play. Mark Schumacher's "Buddhist Corner" pages are a wonderful source of information.
All of the puzzles on this page relate to the successive years of the Chinese calendar animal cycle. For more pictures in this auspicious genre, try the following other pages...
- Gods - features sets of four and seven
- Traditional themes - Red Fuji, and lucky flowers, fish, animals and birds
- Tigers - the auspicious white tiger, and the ferocious yellow one
- Dragons - dragons alone and facing their arch-rival the tiger
- Kaname - painter of traditional lucky themes, particularly various animals
The Imaginatorium's resident Blinkered Empiricist has issued a disclaimer: These are attractive puzzles, but we make no claim that they will have any supernatural effect whatsoever!
Deleted puzzles
For reference: you can view all the puzzles from this page that have gone out of print in the Attic.