Open Palms, a Dragon Beside

Viewing notes

A viewer's written impression — not a buyer review or first-hand record

This copper-toned seated figure spreads both palms wide, and a dragon rises to meet him. Bare-chested with his belly showing, his face is stern, brows locked, gaze straight ahead. Both arms are flung open to the sides, each palm bearing a small round pearl — a gesture somewhere between presenting and weighing. Beside his left leg a dragon coils upward, scales layered, claws gripping the edge of the seat, its head reared up face to face with him, whiskers flying: one still, one stirring, the two in a standoff full of understanding. He sits cross-legged on a rocky base, the robe falling from his left shoulder in a broad arc across his legs. The copper is warm and heavy, and the opposed energies of man and dragon fill the composition to the brim. With its aura turned outward, this is a piece for the principal position of a room — it holds the space — and among arhat subjects in a collection, one of the most kinetic of its kind.