Shunga: Erotic Art in Japan

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The protagonists all appear to be enjoying themselves and there is little or no depiction of coercion. Katsushika Hokusai: The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife (1814) The quality of shunga art varies, and few ukiyo-e painters remained aloof from the genre. Experienced artists found it to their advantage to concentrate on their production. This led to the appearance of shunga by renowned artists, such as the ukiyo-e painter perhaps best known in the Western world, Hokusai (see The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife from the series Kinoe no Komatsu). Ukiyo-e artists owed a stable livelihood to such customs, and producing a piece of shunga for a high-ranking client could bring them sufficient funds to live on for about six months. Among others, the world-famous Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama uses his special hand brush painting technique and hanko stamp signature method in the late 20th and early 21st centuries to create modern day shunga art in the same tradition of the past artists like Hokusai. Fig.3. ‘ Festival mask‘ (c.1805) from the series ‘ Ehon takara gura (Treasure Room of Love)‘ by Kitagawa Utamaro

The people depicted ranged from noblemen to samurai to kabuki actors to just regular people such as merchants and farmers. Very common was the portrayal of prostitutes at their work with their customers. Virtually no stratum of society was excluded. But shunga were a popular mainstay and an important part of itinerant book lenders’ business. They would go to a house, show the books available, lend out the ones desired and recollect them after an agreed period of time. At the time, that was most likely the most common way to enjoy shunga. Men and women were both eager customers. Shunga were produced between the sixteenth century and the nineteenth century by ukiyo-e artists, since they sold more easily and at a higher price than their ordinary work. Shunga prints were produced and sold either as single sheets or—more frequently—in book form, called enpon. These customarily contained twelve images, a tradition with its roots in Chinese shunkyu higa. Shunga was also produced in hand scroll format, called kakemono-e (掛け物絵). This format was also popular, though more expensive as the scrolls had to be individually painted. Edited by: Timothy Clark, C.Andrew Gerstle, Aki Ishigami, Akiko Yano. Timothy Clark is Head of the Japanese Section in the Department of Asia at the British Museum, London. C. Andrew Gerstle is Head of the Department of Japan and Korea and Professor of Japanese studies at SOAS, University of London. Aki Ishigami is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Kinugasa Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto. Akiko Yano is Leverhulme Research Fellow in the Department of Japan and Korea at SOAS, University of London. The wood print artists went for extremely oversized genitals. “Had I depicted it [the genitals] in its actual size, there would be nothing of interest. Don’t we say art is fantasy?” quotes the book Kokon chomonju ( Famous Sayings Old and New, 1254) a monk already painting shunga in the Kamakura Period (1185-1333).In large part, Edo society was divided between public and private spheres and Shogun-dictated obligations meant that men and women were often separated for extended periods. A prevailing interpretation of these sexual implements seems to be that, sequestered away to inner chambers and rendered abstinent by circumstance, women had little option but to engage in self or mutual pleasuring, and were even encouraged to do so for health benefits. A curatorial note accompanying a shunga album in the British Museum offers the following explanation for the depiction of harigata:

One of the most famous shunga ever carved is Hokusai’s The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife. The Japanese title of the work is Ama to Tako ( The Pearl Diver and the Octopus) (1814) and it shows a nude woman being fondled by both a large and a small octopus. Erotic Japanese art was heavily suppressed in Japan from the 1870s onwards as part of a process of cultural ‘modernisation’ that imported many contemporary western moral values. Only in the last twenty years or so has it been possible to publish unexpurgated examples in Japan and this ground-breaking publication presents this fascinating art in its historical and cultural context for the first time. The majority of the shunga available today is however of the more expensive private collector variety. Those were prized items worth keeping while hardly anybody cared about preserving the day-by-day book lender offerings. Fortunately, some have survived nonetheless. Censored shunga published in 1979 Censorship That nudity as such was nothing that would arouse much interest in Edo Japan also led the woodcarvers to dress the protagonists in their pictures in dramatically arranged kimonos during their sex acts. Elaborate dressing revealing nothing but the center of the action was their way of presentation.As diverse as the variety of people depicted, as various was the variety of the sex acts themselves. Heterosexual encounters in all imaginable forms formed the bulk of the pictures. Gay and lesbian encounters were however also present as well as rather fantastic trysts. On the other hand, no artists are known today who produced only shunga. Shunga were not the work of specialized pornographers. Sex was considered a natural part of life in Edo Japan and the production of erotic images reflected this point of view. Katsushika Hokusai: Gods of Myriad Conjugal Delights (1821) Sex in Edo Times From the 1970’s on, shunga could be published again in Japanese books but the genitals had to be covered by fog spots – just as in pink movies. Japanese sex museums ( hihokan) displayed some original shunga for adults only. Even there, fog spots were in place. Both painted handscrolls and illustrated erotic books (empon) often presented an unrelated sequence of sexual tableaux, rather than a structured narrative. A whole variety of possibilities are shown—men seduce women, women seduce men; men and women cheat on each other; all ages from virginal teenagers to old married couples; even octopuses were occasionally featured. [1] Travel and landscapes, studies of the daily work and pleasures of the Edo (present-day Tokyo) population as well as the farmers, fishermen, merchants, soldiers, samurai, and daimyo in the provinces were realistically and often humorously captured by skilled artists such as Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), Utamaro Kitagawa (1753-1806), Harunobu Suzuki (1725-1770) and Eishi Chobunsai (1756-1829).