Shunga : Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art

Fascinating exhibition at the British Museum of as the BM website puts it, ”taboo art form within Japanese social and cultural history” but I think we really need to call it erotica.

The term Shunga means Spring Pictures and the works cover the period from 1600-1900. They are explicit images but after a while you become immune to the images and start to look at the style and detail in them. I loved the sense of humour in them which you don’t see in official life in Japan at the time. I loved the fact they were sold openly but you could also rent the books or images to give more variety!

Many of the works were parodies of more serious works and it was fascinating to see the two side by side.  Also to learn more about the Yoshiwara, the licenses pleasure quarter where theatres and brothels lived side by side and overlap.

I also liked the final section which looked at how they had influenced Western art in things like Picasso’s Vollard Suite which was shown in the same space recently.

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