Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese art

Shunga is the taboo genre of erotic Japanese art. Whilst often considered vulgar or indecent, this exhibition at the British Museum sets Shunga in its historical context, seeks to explain why Shunga was made and who for and reveals its influence on modern art. When viewed in this context, one quickly becomes desensitised to the overtly erotic imagery and can appreciate this genre as a central part of life in Edo and as the art it was intended.

Shunga- which simply means Spring paintings- dates back to the 12th century, when it was hand painted on to large scrolls. It wasn't until the 17th century that artists began to use the ever so popular woodblock print to produce and reproduce their images.

Very early Shunga is quite simply beautiful. The scrolls in the show are incredibly detailed and show intricate patterns of fabrics that drape intimate couples. Whilst explicit sexually, they are also explicit artistically and incredibly beautiful. Other images from this period are far more crude. Particularly a painting depicting a penis measuring competition. The winner is anyone's guess as the men's bits are depicted as being ridiculously huge! As one artist from the period puts it  “if ‘the thing’ were depicted in its actual size there would be nothing of interest, for that reason don’t we say that art is fantasy?”

The woodblock prints allowed Shunga to develop and become mainstream. This led to a huge variety in the way Shunga looked and was used. Utamaro's series of prints that feature in the Poem of the Pillow, offer images presented in thin oblong aspects that the figures don't quite fit in to. It is a classic cropping technique borrowed from other ukiyo-e prints. If you can see the whole image, what is left is up to the imagination, the floating world. This makes the figures seem shyer and more intimate than earlier prints. Embarrassingly, it can also take a while to work out just what's going on in the image, and you can be rather taken aback when you finally work out what you have been staring at for five minutes.

The other genre within Shunga that woodblock printing led to was the satirical book. Many guidesw existed in Japan at this time for women, explaining how to be a good daughter or a good wife. One example used in the exhibition is a pamphlet that explains how to make rice noodles. The Shunga version shows a couple making love and explains the good wife's time would be better spent like this, than making noodles!

Shunga first reached western shores in the early 1600s. It was promptly burned for being so obscene. Once commodore Perry had negotiated trade with Japan and her ports had reopened to the west in 1853 however, Shunga flooded in. French artists in the 19th century were particularly taken with all things Japan and Picasso and Toulouse-Lautrec owned their own Shunga collection and its influence of their work is easy to spot.

In our modern world of the image and sexual liberation, we can still understand the shock of Shunga, yet can appreciate it as an artform. An exhibition well worth a visit.