@article{oai:tobunken.repo.nii.ac.jp:00006409,
 author = {三輪, 英夫 and Miwa, Hideo},
 issue = {334},
 journal = {美術研究, The bijutsu kenkyu : the journal of art studies},
 month = {Jan},
 note = {HARADA Naojirō (1863–1889) who made the study painting in question is one of the important artists of Western-style painting in the mid-Meiji Period. He studied under Gabriel MAX (18401915), a historical-painting artist, at the Munich Academy from 1884 to 1886. After his return to Japan, HARADA executed the two paintings with a dramatized composition, “Avalokiteśvara Mounted on a Dragon” (1890) and “Susanō no Mikoto Slaying the Serpent” (1895), for which he is particularly known. Shown in Plate IX is the study for the latter work. As the completed work was destroyed by fire in 1923 and can be appreciated only through black and white photographs of it, the remaining study is of great academic value.
     This study is in oil, its canvas measuring 77.5 cm by 53.3 cm. The wooden frame bears an inscription by ARISHIMA Ikuma as a connoisseur. The theme is taken from the legend of a mythological god Susanō no Mikoto who slew the eight-headed serpent. The dog painted in it has nothing to do with the story itself.
     Interestingly, as in the case of “Avalokiteśvara Mounted on a Dragon,” the artist showed strong interest in the serpent, a grotesque and fantastic motif. This indicates that while HARADA was studying the Romantic-like historical paintings in Munich he was attracted to the decadent taste and to the apocalyptic subjects. Such artistic interest of HARADA was straightforwardly expressed in his “Avalokiteśvara Mounted on a Dragon.” However, the “Susanō no Mikoto Slaying the Serpent,” completed five years later, seems to be dominated by explicatory tendency rather than the painter's purely artistic expressiveness.
     The difference between the two works shows that there was some kind of limitation in the development of Western-style painting in Japan in its early stage. The author feels that HARADA had to restrain from expressing his own taste, thinking that it was his task to expand the field of historical painting which was still foreign to the Westernstyle painting movement of Japan in those days.},
 pages = {34--39},
 title = {図版解説　原田直次郎筆　素尊斬蛇画稿［岡山県総合文化センター蔵］},
 year = {1986}
}