Shunga
Shunga ( Japanese 春 画 , spring pictures ) is the Japanese term for paintings, prints and pictures of any kind that explicitly depict sexual acts.
Although Shunga also exist as paintings, drawings, copperplate engravings or photos, they are usually understood to mean corresponding Japanese color woodcuts or books from the Edo and Meiji periods (17th century to 1912). They can all be assigned to the ukiyo-e genre; almost all known woodcut artists participated in their production (mostly under a pseudonym).
Concept development
Initially, the terms Makura-e ( 枕 絵 , pillow pictures ), Warai-e ( 笑 い 絵 , pictures for laughing ) or Tsugai-e ( 番 い 絵 , copulation pictures ) were used during the Edo period . For books corresponding content was Kōshokubon ( 好色本 , voluptuous Books ) Waraibon ( 笑い本 , books laugh ) or Enbon ( 艶本 , charming books ) used. The dealers and publishers called them Kagami-e ( 鏡 絵 , mirror images ) or Wa-jirushi ( ワ 印 , soulful prints ). The term Higa ( 秘 画 , secret images ) may have been used only for illustrations of sexual content on the walls, sliding doors, and screens of spaces reserved for secret rendezvous.
The term Shunga (where “spring” is a metaphor for sex ) originated during the Meiji period (1868–1912). At the same time, the term Shunbon ( 春 本 , spring books) came into use for books of sexual content.
Prohibition
Shunga or Makura-e , as they were still called at the end of the Edo period, were officially banned since 1720. However, with the exception of a period of 10 to 15 years after 1720 and a few years after the Kansei- Reforms (1788–93) where this ban was renewed were more or less tolerated; it was possible to sell them “under the counter” without fear of sanctions. In 1869 Warai-e and Enbon were banned again, but initially they continued to produce and buy, albeit to a lesser extent than before. Towards the end of the Meiji period around 1910, both the production and distribution as well as the possession of the pictures, which had meanwhile been perceived as obscene, were put under the threat of punishment and this was also implemented by the state. Most of the material was then destroyed.
Until 1986 it was forbidden in Japan to show the "critical points" on these pictures in books or at exhibitions. It was not until 1994 that the first uncensored Shunga publication in modern Japan came about, but its public presentation is still subject to certain restrictions.
literature
- Charles Grosbois: Shunga - Spring Pictures: Study of the Erotic Representations in Japanese Art . Geneva – Paris – Munich, 1964
- Sumie Jones: Imaging Reading Eros - Sexuality in Edo Culture . Bloomington, 1995 (English)
- Dorith Marhenke, Ekkehard May: Shunga - Erotic woodcuts from the 17th to 19th centuries . Heidelberg, 1995, ISBN 3-89466-138-0
- Timon Screech: Sex and Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan 1700-1820 . London, 2009, ISBN 978-1-86189-432-8 (English)
- Rosina Buckland: Shunga - Erotic Art in Japan . London, 2010, ISBN 978-0-7141-2463-6 (English)
- Ricard Bru, Malén Gual, Secret Images. Picasso and the Japanese Erotic Print . London, 2010, ISBN 978-0-500-09354-2 (English)
