Shunga sex and pleasure in Japanese art

Edited by Timothy Clark C. Andrew Gerstle Aki Ishigami Akiko Yano

Contents

Directors Foreword Sponsors Foreword

6 8

The Censorship of Shunga in the Modern Era

I shiga m i A ki

278 290

List of Lenders 10 Contributing Authors 11 Acknowledgements 12 The Cultural Historical Significance and Importance of Japanese Shunga
Kob ayashi Tadashi

- wa Era (192689) Shunga Studies in the Sho

Shiraku ra Y o shihik o

14

4 Contexts for Shunga 294 Traditional Uses of Shunga 296

Yam a m o t o Y u kari

Introduction 16 What Was Shunga? 18

Ti m oth y C lar k a n d C . A n d r e w Ge r stle

The Distribution and Circulation of Erotic Prints and Books in the Edo Period
L a u ra M o retti

300 304 318 332 364 368 374 378 382 390 394 404 410 418 452 454 464 478 490

Cats 7986 Shunga and Parody

C. A nd rew G erstl e

Who Were the Audiences for Shunga?

Hayakawa M on ta

34 48 60 62 74

Cats 19 1 Early Shunga before 1765 Shunga Paintings before the Floating World
Published to accompany the exhibition Shunga: sex and pleasure in Japanese art at the British Museum from 3 October 2013 to 5 January 2014. Supported by Shunga in Japan LLP Part of Japan 400 This exhibition has been made possible by the provision of insurance through the Government Indemnity Scheme. The British Museum would like to thank the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and Arts Council England for providing and arranging this indemnity. 2013 The Trustees of the British Museum The authors have identified their right to be identified as the authors of this work. First published in 2013 by The British Museum Press A division of The British Museum Company Ltd 38 Russell Square, London WC1B 3QQ britishmuseum.org/publishing A catalogue reference for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-0-7141-2476-6 Designed by Andrew Shoolbred Printed in Spain by Graphos SA, Barcelona Papers used by The British Museum Press are recyclable products and the manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. Many of the works illustrated in this book are from the collection of the British Museum. Museum reference numbers are included in the image captions. Further information about the Museum and its collection can be found at britishmuseum.org. Frontispiece: detail from cat. 53, see pp. 20811 A kik o Yan o

Cats 87109 Popular Cults of Sex Organs in Japan

Su z u ki K enk o

Cats 1019
Ishiga m i A ki

Cats 110112 Grotesque Shunga

I shiga m i A ki

Chinese Chunhua and Japanese Shunga 92 Cats 2022 Shunga and the Rise of Print Culture
- A sa n o S h u g o

104 108 120

Violence in Shunga
H igu chi K a z u taka

Cats 113116 Foreign Connections in Shunga

T i m o n Sc reech

Cats 2337

2 Masterpieces of Shunga 17651850 152 The Essence of Ukiyo-e Shunga 154

Kob ayashi Tadashi

Cats 117121 Children in Shunga

A kik o Yano

Erotic Books as Luxury Goods

Ellis Ti n i os

158 162 170 228 234 242 244 246

Shunga and the Floating World

Mats u ba R yo k o

Listening to the Voices in Shunga

Hayakawa M on ta

Cats 122147 5 Shunga in the Meiji Era Erotic Art of the Meiji Era (18681912)
R o sina B u ckla nd

Cats 3861 The Tale of Genji in Shunga

S at o S ator u

Cats 6267 3 Censorship Timeline of Censorship Shunga and Censorship in the Edo Period (16001868)
J e n n ife r P r e st on

Cats 148157 The Modern Wests Discovery of Shunga

Ricard B ru

Cats 158165

Graph of approximate output of shunga print series and books Cats 6878

259 260

Biographies of Shunga Artists and Authors 507 Concordance of Shunga Titles of Works Exhibited 511 Bibliography 513 Photographic credits 525 Index 526

List of Lenders

Contributing Authors

Denmark Michael Fornitz collection

- (AR), Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto AKAMA Ryo - go - (AS), The Museum Yamato Bunkakan, Nara ASANO Shu Ricard BRU (RiB), Barcelona City Council Culture Institute, Barcelona

Japan Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University Hakutakuan collection International Research Center for Japanese Studies - collection Ishiguro Keisho Itasaka Noriko collection Mitsui Memorial Museum Private collection - collection Taki Rentaro Uragami Mitsuru collection

Rosina BUCKLAND (RoB), National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh Timothy CLARK (TC), The British Museum, London Alan CUMMINGS (AC), SOAS, University of London Julie Nelson DAVIS (JD), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Menno FITSKI (MF), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Amaury GARCA RODRGUEZ (AGR), El Colegio de Mxico, Mexico City C. Andrew GERSTLE (CAG), SOAS, University of London Alfred HAFT (AH), The British Museum, London HAYAKAWA Monta (HM), International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto HIGUCHI Kazutaka (HKa), Mitsui Memorial Museum, Tokyo Monika HINKEL (MH), SOAS, University of London HINOHARA Kenji (HKe), Ukiyo-e Ota Memorial Museum of Art, Tokyo ISHIGAMI Aki (IA), Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto - (IK), The Japan Society for Arts and History of Photography ISHIGURO Keisho - sei University, Tokyo KOBAYASHI Fumiko (KF), Ho - in University, Tokyo KOBAYASHI Tadashi (KT), Emeritus, Gakushu MATSUBA Ryoko (MR), Nanzan University, Nagoya Laura MORETTI (LM), University of Cambridge Joshua MOSTOW (JM), University of British Columbia, Vancouver - University, Tokyo NAITO Masato (NMa), Keio NAKANO Mitsutoshi (NMi), Emeritus, Kyushu University Jennifer PRESTON (JP), SOAS, University of London SADAMURA Koto (SK), University of Tokyo SATO Satoru (SS), Jissen Womens University, Tokyo Timon SCREECH (TS), SOAS, University of London Naoko SHIMAZU (NS), Birkbeck College, University of London

Netherlands Ferdinand Bertholet collection Private collection Rijksmuseum

UK The British Museum Ebi collection Israel Goldman collection Matsuba Foundation Muban Foundation Jeffrey W. Pollard and Ooi-Thye Chong collection Private collection Victoria & Albert Museum

USA Brooks McCormick Jr collection Private collections

SHIRAKURA Yoshihiko (SY), Independent scholar - (SK), Kyoto Seika University SUZUKI Kenko - ko (TY), Ho - sei University, Tokyo TANAKA Yu Ellis TINIOS (ET), Emeritus, University of Leeds - University, Tokyo YAMAMOTO Yukari (YY), Tama Art University and Wako Akiko YANO (AY), SOAS, University of London

10

List of Lenders

Contributing Authors

11

- shinasadame 68 Hyakunin joro (Commentaries on One Hundred Young Women), 1723

This work depicts in two volumes the everyday life of Edo-period women, collecting in its pages images of court and samurai ladies, townswomen, country girls, geisha and sex workers, who perform a kaleidoscope of daily tasks and amusements. The images are preceded by considerable comment on the different kinds of women and their activities. Volume one begins with a female emperor and court ladies (top), and then introduces samurai women and a broad range of classes of women at various tasks. Volume two, in contrast, begins with professional women of pleasure, the high-ranked courtesans of Shimabara, Kyotos official pleasure quarter (bottom). We are then introduced to the women of Edos Yoshiwara and Osakas Shinmachi quarters, leading to the final image in the book, a night hawk streetwalker, or yotaka. All the women are depicted as elegant and gentle, one hardly different from the other. Sex workers were officially considered to be outcasts, below the class and status ranking system. So giving them equal space in the same book to all the other recognized classes put together was significant. This is further - of the title complicated by the fact that in the Edo period the word joro could refer to upper-class women and to women in general, as well as to sex workers. - shinasadame was published in Kyoto in 1723, Hyakunin joro - shokubon), and it is immediately after the banning of erotic books (ko famous today because it was censored by the Bakufu authorities, even though it shows only women and includes absolutely no scenes of sex or romance. This title, and its erotic sequel Hime kagami, which does depict samurai and courtiers having sex, appeared at a period of high - ho - reforms of the 1720s, particularly with regard tension during the Kyo to the newly enacted regulations on publishing.1 These books may have been banned simply because they transgressed a fundamental premise of the samurai government strict distinctions of social class and status. Any attempt to make different spheres of social life appear to be equal and homogenous was considered an affront to the Tokugawa system. Later editions of the book, even in the modern era, often excluded the empress illustration. [AGR]

Nishikawa Sukenobu (artist, 16711750) and - (author, d. 1745) Hachimonji Jisho Large-size illustrated book, woodblock, 2 vols, published by Hachimonjiya Hachizaemon, Kyoto, 28.5 x 19.5 cm (covers) The British Museum, Asia, 1979,0305,0.70.1-2 Provenance: Jack Hillier - zo - 1979; Literature: Suzuki Ju Kurakazu 2003, pp. 3040; Buckland 2010, p. 31; Ishigami 2013a, pp. 7185 Scenes illustrated: (Above) Volume one begins with an image of three court ladies of the highest status: a female emperor, an emperors consort and a princess. (Below) Volume two, in contrast, begins at the other end of the official social scale, showing sex workers from the Shimabara pleasure quarter in Kyoto. Six elegant women are shown in the street (from the right): - (highest-class courtesan), tayu - (teenage apprentice), hikifune shinzo (assistant), yarite (manager), kamuro (child attendant) and tsubone (lower rank).
1 See Rodrguez 2013. Jenny Preston argues - fu narabi no oka that Sukenobus erotic book Fu of 1714 may have contributed to the 1722 ban -shokubon; see cat. 69. on ko

260

Censorship

Censorship

261