In this painting, the Mountain Spirit sits alongside a tiger against a backdrop of deep valleys and mountains. The Mountain Spirit’s large eyes and shaded wrinkles represent the dignity of this deity who rules over a mountain. The fierce appearance of the Mountain Spirit strikes quite a contrast with the humorously depicted tiger. The tiger seems more like an amusing pet than a mystical creature ruling over a mountain.
The author of this work is Yakhyo(d.1928), a leading monk-painter of modern Korean Buddhist painting. Yakhyo began creating Buddhist paintings after seeing how monk-painters were well treated. He practiced by repeatedly imitating drafts by Yuseong, a monk-painter active in Gyeongsang-do Province in the eighteenth century. Such efforts allowed Yakhyo to secure a position as a teacher of several monk-painters and as a leader of Buddhist projects less than ten years after he became a monk-painter.