You're a mother Tiger (yes, yes you are) and you have 3 cubs (yes, yes you do) that you need to get safely across rapids to a bank on the opposite side. Childcare is not an option. Surprisingly, your biggest issue isn't the river, it's the fact that one of your cubs is particularly 'naughty' (for 'naughty' read 'will eat their siblings if left unattended'). How do you do it? Curator Tim Clark has the answer to this Song Dynasty riddle, and will give it to you with the help of a Japanese painted silk screen by the Edo-period artist Maruyama Ōkyo (円山応挙). No tiger cubs were harmed/eaten by their siblings in the making of this video. #CuratorsCorner #JapaneseArt #TigerKingdergarden
These tigers are distinctively catlike. They have the proportionally large eyes and short face of a domestic cat, and the vertical pupil, an adaption to cat's nocturnal lifestyle, is also different from the round pupil of the more crepuscular tiger.
My favourite tiger painting in the British Museum's collection is by Gan Ku, it is very obviously house cat inspired which makes it really charming and just beautifully painted.
@@manonvernon8646 Just googled Ganku Kishi. Yes, they are absolutely delightful. So much movement, such a feeling of it actually being a warm, furry body enjoying life, albeit quite tigerishly!
On the topic of Okyo having never seen a tiger himself, similar situations happened all across Europe in the middle ages with European artists attempting to draw camels and elephants.
@@Just-in-Space I can’t remember off the top of my head who it was, but a pretty major artist in the Northern Renaissance (either a German or Dutch fella) lithographed a rhino purely from a description, and it looks incredibly alien-like
Or normal house cats. I don't know which time period they are from , but there are a lot of old paintings with cats which have human like faces, it looks hilarious and creepy at the same time XD
All very impressive but one detail stands out - the frothy turbulent water spray. This painting predates fast photography by more than a century, but just by observation the artist has captured a very good impression of what water splashes looks like when frozen in time as with a camera on 1/500s
Oh my!... I mean, I pride myself on my own ability to slow down observation to a deep insightful contemplative level, but this you just pointed out? I'm just straight up blown away. Astonishing!
I bet the artist must have sat down and watched a turbulent stream for a really long time, looking for such sprays and waves to appear over and over again.
I don't know much about East Asian painting, but it seems to me that Japanese paintings often show frantic movement compared to Chinese painting which looks more serene. Whether it's water spraying, or wind blowing, or human body posture. The Japanese paintings often look captured in a moment.
And then imagine three redcoats kicking the door in, stabbing you in the guts with a bayonet and stealing your shit *OH Britannia plays in the background*
Any elementary school teacher bringing kids on a field trip will know the answer to this question: you always keep the troublemaker within arm's reach.
Mother tiger is holding the cubs while mumbling unable to open her mouth,''look at me risking my darned life crossing a river that came out the nowhere and having to go the extra mile cause one of my children is a bit psycho not that i don't love them too but lord have mercie it's a bit inconvenetial...*gets to last cub* *still mumbling but louded *"you really need to stop trying eat your siblings Cyndi ....siblings are family not food"*gets all to the banks of the other side of river *"Okay we made it...I need a breath, now lick yourself dry and be good or so help me God ."
I'm Chinese, I think I learnt this puzzle when I was in primary school! But I somehow never learnt the answer, neither I recalled the puzzle when I saw this artefact during a visit to the Mitsubishi Gallery last year...until I watched this video. Haha, that's really a clever but simple answer.
It's actually very simple to work out the answer. It feels like you have a huge amount of choice at each stage but, actually, there's only one option that doesn't either lead to a fight or undo what you just did. At the start, crossing with nothing or with a good cub causes a fight, so you have to take the naughty one. Then, if you return with the naughty cub, you're back at the start, so you must take nothing. Taking nothing again is pointless, and the only other option is to cross with a good cub. Now, taking nothing causes a fight, taking the good cub undoes what you just did, so you have to take the bad cub. Again, taking nothing leads to a fight, taking the bad cub undoes your last move, so you must take a good cub. Now you have two good cubs on the right side of the river, so the only thing to do is to swim back and fetch the naughty cub.
There is a similar western puzzle about a sheep, a wolf and a cabbage, sheep can't be let alone with cabbage, wolf cant be left alone with sheep. Answer(spoiler). Cross sheep, go back solo, cross wolf( or cabbage), cross sheep, cross the remainder (cabbage or wolf), cross alone, cross with sheep.
@@NoisqueVoaProduction I'm never sure which version I prefer. The Chinese version seems purer, in that it admits that the wolf and cabbage are exactly equivalent to each other, whereas the western version lets you work that out yourself.
The camerawork here is lovely! It must be difficult to film such a delicate piece. I especially liked seeing the screen from so many different angles, which would’ve been how it was viewed in a home, but isn’t always possible in a museum. Also, is this the first time Curator’s Corner has taken place in an actual corner? 👀
I really miss the British Museum with not being able to travel during the pandemic so I appreciate these videos. Reading the wording of the description, someone has a sense of humour in your staff and I love that.
I think that the inaccuracy is what makes it more special, nowadays you will never see a tiger depicted like this by a professional artist, at least unintentionally
Yes perhaps, although sometimes the inaccurate version can look even more stunning. Albrecht Durer's rhinoceros may not be fully accurate but it looks far more formidable than the real thing.
@@britishmuseum Smart guy, that Okyo. Here in Sweden 1600s the King commissioned a picture of an elk, the poor Dutch painter (freezing to death in the Royal Palace) thought horse + deer horns. We have the resulting abomination in the museum, but it's no beauty. (Sorry if details wrong, long time since I saw the thing.)
Excellently presented. I especially liked the explanation of why Japanese representations of tigers have flat heads and the lovely tale of the "naughty tiger" being carried across the river - more times than his brothers/sisters! Thanks you.
thank you so much for enlightening us about this painting including the age old conundrum. i really had no idea how delicate the brush strokes were. the fur was just amazing. the expressions of the four cats are all different. the one the river bank licking its fur is so calm and sweet. the one being carried has the usual expression on the face. and, of course, the naughty one definitely looks fierce. the mother has the look they do when carrying the cubs - the lips go up and she’s concentrating. just an incredible piece of work. oh, and telling us about how he taught the apprentices is fascinating. i’m always surprised about the totally different styles between the East and Europe.
If there is one reason why the pupils and other features aren't "accurately" depicted, other than the fact that it would have been virtually impossible to study a tiger upclose, it's because traditionally tigers didn't roam in Japan. It's like how lions were weirdly/inaccurately depicted in art in Europe's art long time ago. In contrast, in some of Korea's surviving tiger painting, despite the style, the pupils are always round or oval-like because the Korean peninsual did have tigers. Japanese used to come to the Korean peninsula to hunt tigers and almost all of the tiger taxidermy you'll see in Japan are tigers from the Korean peninsula, and it's the mass tiger hunting during the Imperial Japan's reign that tigers (and leopards too if I am correct) are extinct now in Korea overall.
Sounds like typical Korean historical propaganda that these “mass huntings” were principally responsible for the extinction of tigers and leopards in the Korean peninsula. I would take that “historical” fact with a generous grain of salt and examine other factors as well, since the Koreans themselves indulged in hunting tigers.
Koreans don't argue against the fact that Koreans themselves did hunt down tigers. Hell, many Koreans hunted FOR Imperial Japan during the colonization. Hunting tigers even prior to the colonizarion did happened and was indeed necessary at times when the numbers of the tigers increased. However, hunting out of necessity alone doesn't explain how all of them went extinct unless there was a sudden increased need of developed land for industrialization and rice cultivation which is what Japan did to Korea. In addition, a Japanese scholar Endo Kimio admitted how the extinction of Korea's tigers (and other apex predators like leopards) is the work of Imperial Japan's violence and the recorded last tiger of Korea was hunted down as a sign of loyalty to Imperial Japan. Japan is not soley to blame for the extinction of Korean tigers, sure, but they are the most important factor that contributed to their extinction.
Truly amazing that something can last 100 years. I hope someday we remember the value of craftsmen, and corporate mass production of cheap goods decreases.
The level of detail in this painting is mind blowing!! I had no idea there was such thing as a "naughty" cub that would attack his siblings. So fascinating to learn details like this.
Could even be the other way around. The earliest known occurrence of the river crossing problem is wolf, goat, and cabbage from Alcuin of York's (8th century) Propositiones ad Acuendos Juvenes.
A man wants to cross a river he has a goose, a dog and a bag of grain, if he leave the goose with the dog the dog will kill the goose if he leave the goose with the grain the goose will eat the grain, how does he cross the river. Goose first, go back for the grain, cross with the grain take the goose back to the dog, cross with the dog, leave the dog with the grain go back for the goose, Universal Puzzle.
How does the goose open the bag to get to the grain? Why can’t the dog swim? How about the goose? I know geese can swim... it’s not a puzzle it’s nonsense.
@@persebra and Code Name: you guys are just no fun. Next you'll be suggesting the guy just shoot and eat the goose, drown the dog and sell the grain. A puzzle is a puzzle!!
@@codename495 all puzzles are, but they set up their restrictions so you can practice operating within them. It's less helpful overall than thinking outside the box, but it's an important skill to develop, too - think about how nonsense most computer programs and apps are, the ability to work out how to do something unconventional in them has some value
@@codename495 Have you ever been bitten by a goose? It's not fun. They can bite things open with their beaks. Or maybe the grain sack didn't have a good closure, and he knew that.
Plot twist, tigers used to be domesticated in the past and this was the equivalent of the pug breed, but since they didn't have the same level of medicine we have now they all died off due to respiratory problems.
fun fact: in italy we have a very similar traditional saying which is "to save goat and cabbage". This refers to a puzzle in which a shepard needs to carry across the river a goat, a cabbage and a wolf (don't ask me why) the problem is very similar and has the same solution of this tiger puzzle! I wonder if there is a common source for those stories!
Yes, I like these very strange versions of the riddle best. Why would a shepherd (or anyone) be carrying a wolf, or a fox, across the river? That would really spark the imagination of a child!
I remember a similar scenario depicted in Poptropica, funnily enough, when I was little. I believe you are to first take the naughty tiger over, then an innocent tiger, on the way back taking with you the naughty tiger. Then, you take another innocent tiger over, cross back, and finish with the naughty tiger.
I like these art explanation videos, since for some reason I am completely unable to figure any of this out by myself, and thus I miss most of the value of any art I see.
I have always wondered this about the unusual shape and positioning of the head and neck of certain animals in Japanese art. Thank you for the reasonable explanation-and for not being click-bait! 🎉
Oh I need to do homework, lol. This was a nice divergent though. I never really sit down and intend to learn about these things, it just kinda happens, but it's really interesting once you do learn about them. Makes you appreciate them more learning about the history, technique and context, so thank you for this video.
Saw this exhibition, and was captivated and enchanted by this beautiful painting!!! Hoped there might be a postcard or print of it in the gift shop, but nothing 😢
This reminds me of Antonio Ligabue, an Italian exponent of the so called "art brut" movement (basically Asylum patients and people in institutions), who painted tigers just from his immagination and adventure books he had read, they have the same energy of the ones represented by this Japanese master. Check him out, he's worth investigating!
flat looking apperances were just the style of many east asian art. east asian art is basically paper + black ink/pigmented ink for the most part, which made the painting dry out very fast and virtually impossible to correct or overpaint afterwards. due to these characteristics of the tools, the most important aspect when painting or doing caligraphy was being swift while capturing the essence. think of it like watercolor croquis if you will, but with the additional pressure to actually attempt to paint your model as accurately and detailed as possible.
there've been no tiger habitat in Japan. so people didn't know what actual tiger looks like. artists drew these tigers according to what they heard. it's interesting to see how people's imagination turn things into bizarre forms but still biologically make sense at the same time.
Your solution provided will never end up in the configuration the illustration provides though. The way to a solution that also includes the painting is: 1. Take the naughty one across and return alone 2. Take the kind one across, and bring the naughty one back with you 3. Take the youngest one (**Illustration as pictured**) and return alone 4. Take the naughty one
Regarding the Chinese influence, due to its geographical location Japan only really had contact with two other major civilisations for most of its history: China and Korea (which itself was greatly influenced by China). India was only known indirectly through Chinese contacts, and that's it. The Japanese word 三国 (three countries) figuratively ment "the whole world". They got a glimpse of the world from their contacts with Europeans in the 16th century, but only really started to experience it after the forcible opening in the 19th when they adopted western shipbuilding and navigation techniques.
If you look, these tigers have slitted eyes like a house cat. Real tigers have round pupils like ours so his theory that the artist was using house cats as models is probably spot on.
To use a brush and paint hairs in natural coat with definition of natural colour being able to create this beautiful Tigers life again in respect Nothing matches the deep detail of Nature , But Zen in brushes.
The answer to the logic puzzle is, of course, to leave the naughty cub ALONE, never allowing it to be left TOGETHER with one of the well behaved cubs while the mother is away.
The tiger was painted with a domestic cat face. Even the ears are exceptionally small. The artist probably never saw a tiger, as the narrator mentioned.
@0:30 - Eh? That riddle wasn't created by a Chinese writer in the 13th century. The river crossing riddle (must take all 3 whatevers across while never leaving specific combinations alone because one will harm the other) goes back to at least the 9th century in thePropositiones ad Acuendos Juvenes" and, most likely, centuries before even that...
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
You're a mother Tiger (yes, yes you are) and you have 3 cubs (yes, yes you do) that you need to get safely across rapids to a bank on the opposite side. Childcare is not an option. Surprisingly, your biggest issue isn't the river, it's the fact that one of your cubs is particularly 'naughty' (for 'naughty' read 'will eat their siblings if left unattended'). How do you do it?
Curator Tim Clark has the answer to this Song Dynasty riddle, and will give it to you with the help of a Japanese painted silk screen by the Edo-period artist Maruyama Ōkyo (円山応挙).
No tiger cubs were harmed/eaten by their siblings in the making of this video.
#CuratorsCorner #JapaneseArt #TigerKingdergarden
That is an ancient logic problem. It was not invented by the Japanese.
@@DBCisco
The curator said that it was a popular chinese theme/tale/riddle
@@Alex-fv2qs It is based on a 2500 year old logic problem
British Museum: Could you pppplease identify/comment on the drawing of the shoji screen at 5:31?
Basically the same as the old riddle, how to ferry a goat, a cale, and a wolf over a river in a boat that can carry only you and one of those
Well, I'm sold. Definitely going to add this to the list of priceless art that I plan to loot after society collapses.
You've better hurry. I have booked a submarine to go up the Thames at night.
What an interesting list
Oh my wow😂
Well society is on its way to being destroyed.
I best finish my net by Saturday so I can bag a live tiger from London zoo, I'm going to need one to keep guard over my horde of toilet paper.
These tigers are distinctively catlike. They have the proportionally large eyes and short face of a domestic cat, and the vertical pupil, an adaption to cat's nocturnal lifestyle, is also different from the round pupil of the more crepuscular tiger.
Thank you for this. I have learnt a new word: crepuscular 👍
Ha! I didn't know that about tigers and cats. Thanks!!
It’s cats that are crepuscular, surely? Tigers are more nocturnal.
My favourite tiger painting in the British Museum's collection is by Gan Ku, it is very obviously house cat inspired which makes it really charming and just beautifully painted.
@@manonvernon8646 Just googled Ganku Kishi. Yes, they are absolutely delightful. So much movement, such a feeling of it actually being a warm, furry body enjoying life, albeit quite tigerishly!
On the topic of Okyo having never seen a tiger himself, similar situations happened all across Europe in the middle ages with European artists attempting to draw camels and elephants.
As well as rhinos. 😆 Though tigers and lion symbolism is seen far from where they actually live so many more interpretations.
@@Just-in-Space I can’t remember off the top of my head who it was, but a pretty major artist in the Northern Renaissance (either a German or Dutch fella) lithographed a rhino purely from a description, and it looks incredibly alien-like
Or normal house cats. I don't know which time period they are from , but there are a lot of old paintings with cats which have human like faces, it looks hilarious and creepy at the same time XD
@@sforbesgocka Albert Dürer. Yes I know exactly who you are talking about. It’s a very. . . Interesting work. 😂
@@elentari15 lol yup, medieval cat paintings were just awful, and so were the babies, people were just bad artists.
All very impressive but one detail stands out - the frothy turbulent water spray. This painting predates fast photography by more than a century, but just by observation the artist has captured a very good impression of what water splashes looks like when frozen in time as with a camera on 1/500s
Oh my!...
I mean, I pride myself on my own ability to slow down observation to a deep insightful contemplative level, but this you just pointed out? I'm just straight up blown away. Astonishing!
Great observation! I would never have picked that out.
I bet the artist must have sat down and watched a turbulent stream for a really long time, looking for such sprays and waves to appear over and over again.
I don't know much about East Asian painting, but it seems to me that Japanese paintings often show frantic movement compared to Chinese painting which looks more serene. Whether it's water spraying, or wind blowing, or human body posture. The Japanese paintings often look captured in a moment.
Tigers lived in Japan during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Epoch.
The texture of the skin of the nose is just beautiful. Imagine being the original owner of the screen, to be surrounded by such beauty.
And then imagine three redcoats kicking the door in, stabbing you in the guts with a bayonet and stealing your shit *OH Britannia plays in the background*
Any elementary school teacher bringing kids on a field trip will know the answer to this question: you always keep the troublemaker within arm's reach.
Truth speaker.
Kids eating one another at school is one of society's biggest problems, yet no one ever wants to talk about it...
No. You drown the troublemaker and blame the substitute teacher. Everyone knows this. 💛👾
I'm a preschool teacher and figured it out right away 🤣
@@vlo4829 you are not to far off.
2:45 Thank you for saying "pains-taking" instead of "pain-staking". What a relief to hear this at least once in my life from another person!
Mother tiger is holding the cubs while mumbling unable to open her mouth,''look at me risking my darned life crossing a river that came out the nowhere and having to go the extra mile cause one of my children is a bit psycho not that i don't love them too but lord have mercie it's a bit inconvenetial...*gets to last cub* *still mumbling but louded *"you really need to stop trying eat your siblings Cyndi ....siblings are family not food"*gets all to the banks of the other side of river *"Okay we made it...I need a breath, now lick yourself dry and be good or so help me God ."
Not sure it's going to happen, but I'll put a word in about changing the naughty cub's name to Cyndi 🤣
@@britishmuseum hahaha 😂Also wasn't expecting a reply😄
I'm Chinese, I think I learnt this puzzle when I was in primary school! But I somehow never learnt the answer, neither I recalled the puzzle when I saw this artefact during a visit to the Mitsubishi Gallery last year...until I watched this video. Haha, that's really a clever but simple answer.
It's actually very simple to work out the answer. It feels like you have a huge amount of choice at each stage but, actually, there's only one option that doesn't either lead to a fight or undo what you just did.
At the start, crossing with nothing or with a good cub causes a fight, so you have to take the naughty one. Then, if you return with the naughty cub, you're back at the start, so you must take nothing. Taking nothing again is pointless, and the only other option is to cross with a good cub. Now, taking nothing causes a fight, taking the good cub undoes what you just did, so you have to take the bad cub. Again, taking nothing leads to a fight, taking the bad cub undoes your last move, so you must take a good cub. Now you have two good cubs on the right side of the river, so the only thing to do is to swim back and fetch the naughty cub.
@@beeble2003 Indeed, if you want to move, there is only one possible option each step
Excellent choice of a profile picture! :-)
There is a similar western puzzle about a sheep, a wolf and a cabbage, sheep can't be let alone with cabbage, wolf cant be left alone with sheep.
Answer(spoiler). Cross sheep, go back solo, cross wolf( or cabbage), cross sheep, cross the remainder (cabbage or wolf), cross alone, cross with sheep.
@@NoisqueVoaProduction I'm never sure which version I prefer. The Chinese version seems purer, in that it admits that the wolf and cabbage are exactly equivalent to each other, whereas the western version lets you work that out yourself.
The camerawork here is lovely! It must be difficult to film such a delicate piece. I especially liked seeing the screen from so many different angles, which would’ve been how it was viewed in a home, but isn’t always possible in a museum.
Also, is this the first time Curator’s Corner has taken place in an actual corner? 👀
It shows a tremendous gentleness and respect to sit on the floor and interact with this piece as it was meant.
I thought they had flat heads from being patted too much.
🤣
😂 Cuuuute
I would love to see this in person...beautiful
The concept behind this conveys ultimate danger and protection. Visually “cute” at the same time.
This is very good but I need to know how Irving Finkel is doing as he is a treasure.
Finkle is eighnhorn...
I was wondering the same, how is Finkel doing? :(
@@capuchinosofia4771 he did a stream 6 days ago
@@dihydrogenmonoxide7600 :0 can't believe I missed that! Glad he is ok!!! Thank you for telling me :D
I really miss the British Museum with not being able to travel during the pandemic so I appreciate these videos. Reading the wording of the description, someone has a sense of humour in your staff and I love that.
So it’s a puzzle as well as a painting, what a fantastic piece of art.
This painting is absolutely beautiful! The attention to detail and the story behind it is just amazing
Another wonderful episode. These curator corner videos are seriously underrated.
Love this curator's corner, thanks for making it!
Fantastic! I could’ve watched an hour about that screen!
I'm pretty certain the artist would have destroyed this and make a new one if he saw an actual tiger
I think that the inaccuracy is what makes it more special, nowadays you will never see a tiger depicted like this by a professional artist, at least unintentionally
*would have
Yes perhaps, although sometimes the inaccurate version can look even more stunning. Albrecht Durer's rhinoceros may not be fully accurate but it looks far more formidable than the real thing.
She really nailed that naughty cub! It looks bad to the bone.
I so love that he's telling us about all this from the floor.
They eyes of living tigers have round pupils. Slit pupils are seen in most other cats, including domestic house cats.
No big cats have slitted pupils.
@@honestjohn3881 look up pictures of tigers they are clearly round
@@Ricardowieringa Paying attention to punctuation is important.
I think I'd die of fright if I saw I rider with slit pupils. They'd be twice as scary for me.
Ah, so the slit pupils is your crux? Not the malformed shoulder blades, rounded heads, or generally wonky body proportions?
This makes me realize how much more terrifying tigers would be with slit pupils and flat heads. Gorgeous art though.
And real tigers are already crazy scary! I mean, just listen to that roar. It's almost psychotic anger mixed with pure hatred haha
@@phoebeel yep. 💙
Beautiful and painstaking brush strokes. Must be even more impressive in person.
yeah it's really impressive really you cannot deny that. it is beautiful.
Some of it looks like they might have used a cat as the model.
Very likely that Okyo took cats as his model for the tiger cubs' postures
@@britishmuseum Smart guy, that Okyo. Here in Sweden 1600s the King commissioned a picture of an elk, the poor Dutch painter (freezing to death in the Royal Palace) thought horse + deer horns. We have the resulting abomination in the museum, but it's no beauty. (Sorry if details wrong, long time since I saw the thing.)
@@blixten2928 what’s the name of the painting?
@@user-pe2yx9kt4e I'm searching for it. Surprisingly difficult to google, even in Swedish. Will get back to you!
@@blixten2928 thank you!
Excellently presented. I especially liked the explanation of why Japanese representations of tigers have flat heads and the lovely tale of the "naughty tiger" being carried across the river - more times than his brothers/sisters! Thanks you.
thank you so much for enlightening us about this painting including the age old conundrum. i really had no idea how delicate the brush strokes were. the fur was just amazing. the expressions of the four cats are all different. the one the river bank licking its fur is so calm and sweet. the one being carried has the usual expression on the face. and, of course, the naughty one definitely looks fierce. the mother has the look they do when carrying the cubs - the lips go up and she’s concentrating. just an incredible piece of work. oh, and telling us about how he taught the apprentices is fascinating. i’m always surprised about the totally different styles between the East and Europe.
The naughty cub looks like he just got caught attacking his siblings
God I love these videos
I love learning about random historical stories and facts, especially when its super foreign to me, I love it
Such painstaking work by the artist, very impressive...many thanks for uploading and discussing in detail. 👍
If there is one reason why the pupils and other features aren't "accurately" depicted, other than the fact that it would have been virtually impossible to study a tiger upclose, it's because traditionally tigers didn't roam in Japan. It's like how lions were weirdly/inaccurately depicted in art in Europe's art long time ago. In contrast, in some of Korea's surviving tiger painting, despite the style, the pupils are always round or oval-like because the Korean peninsual did have tigers. Japanese used to come to the Korean peninsula to hunt tigers and almost all of the tiger taxidermy you'll see in Japan are tigers from the Korean peninsula, and it's the mass tiger hunting during the Imperial Japan's reign that tigers (and leopards too if I am correct) are extinct now in Korea overall.
@TheOutrageousOrangeApe 101 and probably the last tigers were dwarfs!
Sounds like typical Korean historical propaganda that these “mass huntings” were principally responsible for the extinction of tigers and leopards in the Korean peninsula. I would take that “historical” fact with a generous grain of salt and examine other factors as well, since the Koreans themselves indulged in hunting tigers.
Koreans don't argue against the fact that Koreans themselves did hunt down tigers. Hell, many Koreans hunted FOR Imperial Japan during the colonization.
Hunting tigers even prior to the colonizarion did happened and was indeed necessary at times when the numbers of the tigers increased. However, hunting out of necessity alone doesn't explain how all of them went extinct unless there was a sudden increased need of developed land for industrialization and rice cultivation which is what Japan did to Korea. In addition, a Japanese scholar Endo Kimio admitted how the extinction of Korea's tigers (and other apex predators like leopards) is the work of Imperial Japan's violence and the recorded last tiger of Korea was hunted down as a sign of loyalty to Imperial Japan.
Japan is not soley to blame for the extinction of Korean tigers, sure, but they are the most important factor that contributed to their extinction.
I LOVE this riddle and the painting techniques you describe must be mind blowing in person. thank you so much for posting this
Truly amazing that something can last 100 years. I hope someday we remember the value of craftsmen, and corporate mass production of cheap goods decreases.
The level of detail in this painting is mind blowing!! I had no idea there was such thing as a "naughty" cub that would attack his siblings. So fascinating to learn details like this.
So who converted that riddle into the fox and goose and cabbage?
Similar riddle, conceptually, isn't it? But a slightly different answer.
Steve
@@JrgeLb What, the bloke from the golf club?
In Romania the riddle is with a farmer who had a wolf, a goat and a cabbage.
Could even be the other way around. The earliest known occurrence of the river crossing problem is wolf, goat, and cabbage from Alcuin of York's (8th century) Propositiones ad Acuendos Juvenes.
Maybe he couldnt get close enought to a tiger to see whats what
The takeaway for me is that the naughty cub needs more attention, more contact, more guidance. Interesting riddle.
A man wants to cross a river he has a goose, a dog and a bag of grain, if he leave the goose with the dog the dog will kill the goose if he leave the goose with the grain the goose will eat the grain, how does he cross the river. Goose first, go back for the grain, cross with the grain take the goose back to the dog, cross with the dog, leave the dog with the grain go back for the goose, Universal Puzzle.
How does the goose open the bag to get to the grain? Why can’t the dog swim? How about the goose? I know geese can swim... it’s not a puzzle it’s nonsense.
and you can tie the goose and dog to separate trees or both the goose and the dog can be attached to leashes and have them swim
@@persebra and Code Name: you guys are just no fun. Next you'll be suggesting the guy just shoot and eat the goose, drown the dog and sell the grain. A puzzle is a puzzle!!
@@codename495 all puzzles are, but they set up their restrictions so you can practice operating within them. It's less helpful overall than thinking outside the box, but it's an important skill to develop, too - think about how nonsense most computer programs and apps are, the ability to work out how to do something unconventional in them has some value
@@codename495 Have you ever been bitten by a goose? It's not fun. They can bite things open with their beaks. Or maybe the grain sack didn't have a good closure, and he knew that.
Okyo is the artist’s first name. Love Japanese art and this explanation of the story behind it.
I didn't know that there were any objects in the British museum which were not looted but legally acquired
This is the first thing I watch in the morning and I'm not disappointed
Plot twist, tigers used to be domesticated in the past and this was the equivalent of the pug breed, but since they didn't have the same level of medicine we have now they all died off due to respiratory problems.
wait what?
While not a mother, I did babysit my little cousins (four brothers) when I was 13 and I kind of feel like I understand this tiger's struggle lol.
Very good video!! Absolutely gorgeous piece of art 🤩🧡
No one else going to point out how well colour-coordinated the curator is to the artefact?
That's a good mama cat!
Tigers don't have slit pupils, they have round pupils, like lions do.
Probably someone in China told Maruyama Ōkyo that they look like giant cats! The fur is well done though, probably had tiger skin to reference from.
Maybe he can redo it
No do-overs
Maybe thats why they zoomed in on the eye at 2:00
To be fair, his tigers are far more acvurate than Europeans at the same time attempting lions
Lol what. Look up Ruben's Daniel in the Lions Den, he had them perfect an entire century before this
One-eye tiger cub, but still gets mother’s love!
fun fact: in italy we have a very similar traditional saying which is "to save goat and cabbage". This refers to a puzzle in which a shepard needs to carry across the river a goat, a cabbage and a wolf (don't ask me why) the problem is very similar and has the same solution of this tiger puzzle! I wonder if there is a common source for those stories!
We have the exact same saying in France ("ménager la chèvre et le chou")
It seems that historically, treacherous rivers and more treacherous cargo/beasts were more common than they are today xD
Yes, I like these very strange versions of the riddle best. Why would a shepherd (or anyone) be carrying a wolf, or a fox, across the river? That would really spark the imagination of a child!
I’m in love! Thanks for this 🐯
Happy this was in my recommended. Love me some history.
what a wonderful video! insightful. inspiring. educational. thank you!
I remember a similar scenario depicted in Poptropica, funnily enough, when I was little. I believe you are to first take the naughty tiger over, then an innocent tiger, on the way back taking with you the naughty tiger. Then, you take another innocent tiger over, cross back, and finish with the naughty tiger.
That was exactly what I thought.
Absolutely love the screen.🥰
Very very cool!!!
Thank you. :)
I like these art explanation videos, since for some reason I am completely unable to figure any of this out by myself, and thus I miss most of the value of any art I see.
I have a chicken, a bag of corn, and a fox I need to ferry across the river and RUclips recommends me a video about TIGERS?
I have always wondered this about the unusual shape and positioning of the head and neck of certain animals in Japanese art. Thank you for the reasonable explanation-and for not being click-bait! 🎉
Looking at any drawings of animals done long ago usually aren't perfectly accurate. Enjoyable video.
Oh I need to do homework, lol.
This was a nice divergent though. I never really sit down and intend to learn about these things, it just kinda happens, but it's really interesting once you do learn about them. Makes you appreciate them more learning about the history, technique and context, so thank you for this video.
I wish my mom had been that smart instead of leaving me with my mean older cousins.
Saw this exhibition, and was captivated and enchanted by this beautiful painting!!! Hoped there might be a postcard or print of it in the gift shop, but nothing 😢
Probably dead on. Big cats have round pupils so he was most definitely, probably, basing it on house cats.
So the origin of the corn, chicken & fox crossing a river problem is Chinese. Fascinating, & a beautiful piece of art.
Or, Indian. There was a lot of cross-cultural borrowing between India, China and, of course, Japan. (Buddhism, demons, sacred beasts, for instance.)
This reminds me of Antonio Ligabue, an Italian exponent of the so called "art brut" movement (basically Asylum patients and people in institutions), who painted tigers just from his immagination and adventure books he had read, they have the same energy of the ones represented by this Japanese master. Check him out, he's worth investigating!
Wonderful presentation
flat looking apperances were just the style of many east asian art. east asian art is basically paper + black ink/pigmented ink for the most part, which made the painting dry out very fast and virtually impossible to correct or overpaint afterwards. due to these characteristics of the tools, the most important aspect when painting or doing caligraphy was being swift while capturing the essence. think of it like watercolor croquis if you will, but with the additional pressure to actually attempt to paint your model as accurately and detailed as possible.
Really beautiful and interesting.
This is the one museum I need to visit once COVID is over.
Brillent. I love the animation. Wonderful and interesting vidio. I'd love to know more about the painting medium used on the gold leaf.
Beautiful 😍
Thanks, that was fascinating!
there've been no tiger habitat in Japan. so people didn't know what actual tiger looks like. artists drew these tigers according to what they heard. it's interesting to see how people's imagination turn things into bizarre forms but still biologically make sense at the same time.
And here the discussion starts again from the beginning, 100-odd posts ago! Fun!
Brilliant painting,brilliant presentation,brilliant mother tiger.
I've only studied Chinese, Indonesian and Italian art before and it reflects Chinese movements so much
did anyone else see that he touched this priceless artwork with his bare hands in the beginning... what the hell
Ah! The Fox, chicken, corn riddle.
Painting from a dead animal skin is probably why the horses of Stubbs sometimes look like carcasses hanging from a framework - because they WERE.
Love the story of the naughty cub
I remember this riddle when I was a kid. That was over 25 years ago.
Your solution provided will never end up in the configuration the illustration provides though.
The way to a solution that also includes the painting is:
1. Take the naughty one across and return alone
2. Take the kind one across, and bring the naughty one back with you
3. Take the youngest one (**Illustration as pictured**) and return alone
4. Take the naughty one
So this is the original Feeds, Chicken and Fox
Fly me 2 Japan so I can just sit with you and hear and learn about tigers.
Tigers do not have slitted eyes, so the artist did probably not observe a living tiger. But the painting of the fur is a miracle of some sort.
RUclips loves recommending answers to questions I never asked, but here I am!
That riddle is similar to a chicken/fox/something else puzzle in poptropica. Nice to know the origin!
Regarding the Chinese influence, due to its geographical location Japan only really had contact with two other major civilisations for most of its history: China and Korea (which itself was greatly influenced by China). India was only known indirectly through Chinese contacts, and that's it. The Japanese word 三国 (three countries) figuratively ment "the whole world".
They got a glimpse of the world from their contacts with Europeans in the 16th century, but only really started to experience it after the forcible opening in the 19th when they adopted western shipbuilding and navigation techniques.
If you look, these tigers have slitted eyes like a house cat. Real tigers have round pupils like ours so his theory that the artist was using house cats as models is probably spot on.
To use a brush and paint hairs in natural coat with definition of natural colour
being able to create this beautiful Tigers life again in respect
Nothing matches the deep detail of Nature ,
But Zen in brushes.
The answer to the logic puzzle is, of course, to leave the naughty cub ALONE, never allowing it to be left TOGETHER with one of the well behaved cubs while the mother is away.
The tiger was painted with a domestic cat face. Even the ears are exceptionally small. The artist probably never saw a tiger, as the narrator mentioned.
@0:30 - Eh? That riddle wasn't created by a Chinese writer in the 13th century. The river crossing riddle (must take all 3 whatevers across while never leaving specific combinations alone because one will harm the other) goes back to at least the 9th century in thePropositiones ad Acuendos Juvenes" and, most likely, centuries before even that...
When I lived in Japan. There were tigers at ebisu circuit. Lions and elephants too. Yes all at a drift circuit 😉
Beautiful.
This is the riddle aboul a boatman, a wolf, a goat and a cabidge.