Japanese

Erotic
Fantasies
Sexual
Imagery
of the
Edo Period

Japanese
Erotic
Fantasies
Sexual
Imagery
of the
Edo Period
Essay by
Chris Uhlenbeck
Cecilia Segawa Seigle
Margarita Winkel
Ellis Tinios
Oikawa Shigeru
Hotei Publishing
Amsterdam
Preface
Acknowledgements
Editorial Notes
Shunga: the Issues
Chris Uhlenbeck
The Setting for shunga: the Yoshiwara
Cecilia Segawa Seigle
Erotic Books in the Floating World of Urban Life
Margarita Winkel
Illustrating the Way of Youth
Ellis Tinios
Encountering shunpon
Ellis Tinios
The Catalogue
The Primitives
The Age of Harunobu
Kiyonaga and Utamaro
The Nineteenth Century
A Handbill for the Yotsumeya
Margarita Winkel
The Meiji Period and Beyond
A Case Study of Meiji shunga: the artist Kawanabe Ky
-
osai (1831-89)
Oikawa Shigeru
Appendix of Japanese characters of book, print and series titles
5
6
8
11
13
19
43
66
85
132
233
254
Contents
8
Japanese prints have received an enormous amount
of attention fromscholars, connoisseurs and amateurs
over the last 120 years. The fascination with the
unfathomable orient, the general interest in Japan and
the almost immediate appreciation of Japanese graphic
art fromits introduction in Europe has led to a huge
corpus of studies on Japanese prints.
Shunga, or literally images of spring, erotic images, have
until recently escaped a scholarly assessment. Reasons
for this are easily understood: the nature of the subject
matter disqualified the inclusion of erotic art in the
major exhibitions devoted to Japanese prints, it was
not considered a respectable object for academic
discours and above all, the legal position in Japan of
publications on and the commercial traffic in shunga
was not very encouraging.
Throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries
Japanese artists produced images of erotic enjoyment.
Major artists were involved in the creation of shunga,
thousands and thousands of erotic prints, books and
scrolls were produced and found a clientele.
Why they were sold, what function did they fulfill,
who designed the imagery, how did the artist con-
struct the composition, what was the relationship
between text and image and what does the image
tell us about Japanese sexual culture, are some of
the questions that will be addressed here.
We seek to address the issue of commerce and func-
tion, while at the same time trying to identify what
aesthetic and compositional rules guided the artists in
their goal to please their prospective audience. So apart
from their function and their position in the commer-
cial complex of printmaking, we do insist to look at
the role of the artist because there is probably no other
subject that gives such insight in the qualities of the
artists as the shunga genre. The artist, dealing with
the complexities of close human interaction, often
involving complicated bodily positions, has to convey
sexual intimacy and often needs to do so in a sequen-
tial form. Or in Jack Hilliers words: (....) Shunga often
elicited works of art (Hillier, Art of the Japanese Book,
vol. 1, p. 291) Shunga, the general termthat we use in
this volume to gloss all erotic imagery (footnote) was
one of the six genres that constituted the main body
of Japanese printmaking as we know it. Alongside
yakusha-e, (images of actors) bijin-ga (prints of beauties)
fukei-ga (images of landscapes) musha-e (images of war-
riors) and kacho-e (images of birds and flowers) shunga
belonged to the standard ways for artists and publish-
ers for making money.
Most artists, including the most famous ones, such as
Suzuki Harunobu (1724?-1770), Isoda Kory sai ( 1735-
1790), Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1805), Katsushika
Hokusai (1769-1849), Torii Kiyonaga (1752-1815),
Kikugawa Eizan (1787-1867), Keisai Eisen (1790-1848),
Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1865) and Utagawa Kuniyoshi
(1797-1861), to name but a few, produced shunga,
and despite the censorship laws were often extremely
Erotic fantasies of Japan
The world of shunga G.C. Uhlenbeck
< detail fig. 67a
9 10
prolific in the genre. Although little is known about
shunga publishers, it seems likely that all of the major
publishing houses tried to make money out of sex:
sex sold, like sex sells now.
Because of its nature, Shunga have always held a spe-
cial position. First of all, it was the victim of censor-
ship rules in Edo (present-day Tokyo) during the time
of their production up until the present day. In Japan
today, the sale of erotica showing genitalia or pubic
hair, is officially forbidden, but tolerated. It is still not
allowed to enter the country. Even shunga made in
Japan, two hundred years ago are not allowed to return
to their location of creation. In the last ten years, since
no measures are undertaken against the publication
or reproduction of uncensored shunga, a wealth of
material has flooded the market. The first uncensored
catalogue froman antiquarian bookdealer, Seisho/do/,
appeared only eight years ago, in 1996. This situation
in Japan has hindered the accumulation of knowledge
in this area of Japanese prints significantly. The late
Richard Lane, one of the pioneers of shunga studies in
Japan complained that the entire stock of his (cen-
sored) magazine Ukiyo-e, Journal of Floating World Art,
published fromand largely devoted, but not exclu-
sively to shunga, was confiscated and destroyed despite
it being censored, just because there was too much
discussion on erotic prints and paintings. Secondly,
its inferior status within the field of ukiyo-e, itself
a subject of study that received very little academic
attention in official art historical circles, relegated it
to a position of a neglected field. In the West, shunga
have seldombeen integrated in the general picture of
Japanese printmaking. For example in the catalogues
to major exhibitions organised by the Royal Academy
in London on Katsushika Hokusai in 1992 and on
Utagawa Hiroshige in 1997 shunga were notoriously
absent (Forrer, 1992, 1997). Not a single reference was
made in either of the two catalogues, suggesting to
the uninformed that this was something these artists
did not get involved in. (See also Schalow, 2000, p. 419,
who comments on the absence of shunga fromthe Art
of the Edo period show in the National Gallery in
Washington).
But shunga were not passed over completely. Several
earlier studies deserve to be mentioned: the ground
breaking book by Tomand Mary Evans (1975) can
be considered the first modern overview of the genre,
carefully positioning it within the cultural context
of Edo.
Jack Hillier, in his Art of the Japanese Book (1987) gives
his full attention to the development of shunga books
and albums over time. Marco Fagioli (19??,19?? And ??)
has presented us with a wealth of illustrations. An
neglected but extremely detailed discussion of sexual
life in Edo Japan, is to be read in the old study by
Krauss and Satow (1930, revised ed. 1965), which pro-
vides endless detail based on the work of Tamio Satow,
an Japanese ethnographer working at the beginning
of the 20th century. In Japan, Hayashi Yoshikazu spent
his entire life on research of shunga. (Hayashi, 19)
In the last ten years, however, shunga studies have
mushroomed.
The above mentioned relaxation of censorship in
Japan has resulted in a multitude of uncensored full
colour publications. The aforementioned Richard Lane
edited the 27 volume series Teihon: ukiyo-e shunga meihin
shusei [dates], which reproduced in full colour
all plates of 24 print series or illustrated books, adding
in three separate volumes thematic aspects of the
Japanese erotic arts. In terms of research three publica-
tions have generated much discussion. Sumie Jones
organized a conference in 1995, Imaging/reading Eros:
Sexuality and Edo culture, 1750-1850 and published
the proceedings under the same title. In 1999 the
highly acclaimed and severely criticised Sex and the
Floating World by Timon Screech saw the light. This
highly provocative overview provides endless inspira-
tion for future research and is recommended reading
for all who want to dig deeper than this volume
allows. Gary Leupp produced the first English lan-
guage publication on Edo period homosexuality
(Leupp, 1995). This volume tries to pick up some of
the general issues raised by Screech and the authors
contributing to Sumie Joness collection of symposium
presentations and incorporate these issues in what is
basically an art exhibition.
Shunga: the socio-historical setting
The erotic imagery shown here in this exhibition is,
with for the greatest part datable to the Edo period
(1600-1868), with a few examples leading us out of
the 19th and into the 20th century.
The setting is an urban setting. Since the unification
of Japan at the end of the 16th century, urban growth
characterized social and political developments.
Edo (present day Tokyo) the seat of the shogunal
government, Kyoto, the imperial capital and Osaka,
the merchant city, grew into enormous urban con-
glomerates. Edo reached one million inhabitants
as early as 1695, making it at the time the largest city
in the world. Kyoto and Osaka have been estimated
to have had an identical population size of around
400000 people at the end of the 17th century. Edo
was a consciously created capital, the development
of which was started in the 1590s by Tokugawa Ieyasu
who was Japans first shogun from 1603. Edo devel-
oped into a centre with governmental and military
institutions surrounding the shogunal court. The
Tokugawa shogunate established a feudal system
where the regional control was put in the hands
of daimyo or feudal lords.
1.
Kiyonaga Hashira-e
A new Years entertainer
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
2.
Kiyonaga Hashira-e
A new Years entertainer
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
3.
Kiyonaga Hashira-e
A new Years entertainer
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
11 12
The feudal lords subservient to the shogun were
forced to spend every other year in attendance to the
shogun in Edo, and the other in their domains. The
wives and children of the daimyo stayed permanently
at their estates in Edo, hostages of the shogun. This
systemof alternating residence (sankin kotai) gave the
shogun a strong instrument of control over the appro-
ximately 270 daimyo. The daimyo, when in Edo spent
their tax money with great liberty:
While in attendance, the daimyo were prodded to disgorge their
treasuries in conspicuous consumption and ceremony, and in
projects assigned them by the shogunate. (Leupp, 1992, p.10)
The governments political ambitions and the con-
sumption levels of the daimyo led to construction
and production booms, attracting an ever-growing
cho/nin (townsmen) population. The development of
the urban, non-samurai population in Edo has been
documented in great detail elsewhere (See for example
Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 4 Ch. 11, p.519-595;
McClain and Osamu 1999) The most essential element
is however the subsequent development of extreme
differences in financial wealth among cho/nin them-
selves, and between cho/nin and samurai. The cho/nin
came out on top, and while excluded fromcourtly
enjoyments, they sought to find their own. And with
the appearance of an increasingly rich audience, an
arty urban consumption culture developed. The
cho/nin consumed the pleasures of the kabuki theatre,
Edo speciality cuisines, lighthearted literature
(Ukiyo-e zo/shi), the arts and paid sexual entertain-
ment: perhaps Edo between 1650 and 1850 can best
be described as a fermenting pot of cultural produc-
tion and consumption. It was in this hotbed that
the world of printmaking developed. The townsmen
needed mementos of their favourite kabuki actors,
their courtesans and later, of their historical heroes
and famous places throughout the realm. The rapid
emergence of a publishing industry in all three major
urban centres created a huge production node, with
wide ramifications throughout the economic fabric
of society. It is estimated that Edo publishers active
between 1650 and 1868 numbered over a thousand.
They employed printers and carvers, commissioned
writers and artists, ordered paper and woodblocks.
As part of their strategy for survival they continuously
looked for new subjects and genres, trying to read the
tastes of their fickle but cash-rich audiences, innovat-
ing wherever they could. The idea that sex sells did
not take long to sink in. Just like Daguerres second
or third albumen picture was erotic, just so did the
late 17th century publishers immediately grasp the
financial opportunities being granted by the produc-
tion of pornography. Shunga had one big advantage:
the consumption was not seasonal. Demand for sexual
texts and images would be strong throughout the year.
On the other hand, shunga had a drawback: they were
seen as a threat to public morality and were therefore
illegal and punishment would await the producer of
shunga, the artist and the publisher.
Censorship
This happy-go-lucky cultural and economic environ-
ment caused governmental intervention at various
moments in history. These measures were sometimes
aimed at curtailing excessive consumption, in an
attempt to avoid squandering funds on non-economic
goods. These sumptuary laws were used against all
forms of excess, fromthe prohibition for servants to
wear garments made of silk to the use of expensive
pigments in the production of woodblock prints.
Other measures concerned the written word or picto-
rial representations. Political commentary or any
commentary on current events, especially in relation
to the Emperor and the Shogun and their families was
completely banned and what concerns us here, the
production of amoral goods, especially sexual imagery
as well.
Attempts at influence over the erotic trends of Edo
city culture were undertaken by the bakufu (shogunal
government). As early as 1661 the Edo North City
Commissioner prohibited k shokubon (erotic books)
and in 1673 a systemof self-regulation by the publi-
shers guild was put into operation. Representatives
of the publishers guild (gy ji), would be in charge of
inspecting new books and give or withhold permis-
sion for publication. This held for books and prints.
Three consecutive reforms, the Ky h reforms of the
1720s, the Kansei reforms starting in 1790 and Tenp
reforms of the 1840s sought to restore the moral order,
to curb excessive spending on luxury goods and
exclude any formof criticismon the government.
Part of these edicts pertained to the publishing indus-
try and the producers of prints and books. Sumptuary
laws were introduced excluding the use of certain pig-
ments, and censorship laws prohibited the depiction
of actors or courtesans and any reference to current
events. In the eleventh month of Ky h 7 (1722) it was
decreed in relation to shunga that: amorous books
(k shokubon) because they are bad for public morals,
must gradually cease to be printed and that newly
printed works must include the names of the author
and artist and publisher. The publishers were
instructed to abide by these regulations. The number
of known punished infringements in the Edo period
was limited and for example during the time of
Harunobu and Kory sai the artists did not hesitate
to put their names on the prints, obviously having
no fear for government action. But the systemof
censorship sounded severe, clearly with the intention
of admonishing the industries concerned to regulate
themselves and thus avoid major infringements.
During the Kansei reforms, no new books and defi-
nitely no shunga books were allowed to be produced,
unless it could be shown that they truly could be con-
sidered a worthy addition to the already voluminous
corpus of Japanese books in existence. The edicts obvi-
ously had an effect. Utamaro produced one single
4.
Kiyonaga Hashira-e
A new Years entertainer
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
5.
Kiyonaga Hashira-e
A new Years entertainer
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
13 14
book illustration between 1790 and 1795, possibly
shocked into obedience by the major punishment
meted out to his maecenas and publisher Tsutaya
Juzaburo/. However, after 1795 he came back with
a bang, producing the vast majority of his total oeuvre
of c. 40 erotic books, an indication that the severity of
censorship slackened. But initially it is clear that cen-
sorship fears effected the publishing industry and the
directions it followed.
In a famous case in 1791 the well known publisher
Tsutaya Juzaburo/ lost half his wealth as a fine because
of the production of three sharebon by the author
Santo/Kyo/den, who was sentenced to 50 days in
shackles. When reading through one of the three,
Nishiki no ura (in translation, Kornicki 1977, 167-188)
it is hard to understand how the authorities could feel
that the moral order was affected. In any case, the city
magistrates attained the desired effect and a period
of general caution among publishers followed. Tsutaya
did get the message and produced only one more
sharebon before his death in 1797 and his author
Kyo/den never wrote another. Perhaps equally impor-
tant is the fact that the gy ji who had permitted the
publication of Kyodens book, were banished from
Edo: these officials, selected from within the publish-
ing industry itself were very well informed of all that
was going on. In view of the enormous shunga pro-
duction in spite of censorship measures outlawing
the genre, the gyoji must have had many unpleasant
dreams.
Sexual culture or the culture of sex
The growth of the city of Edo following the unifica-
tion of Japan by Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1603 and estab-
lishment of the shogunate and the bakufu (shogunal
government) mentioned above, was not an even
growth in terms of male female distribution. The
sankin k tai systemwas one cause for the predominance
of men: although the families of the daimyo were kept
as semi-hostages by the bakufu, the dependents of the
vassals of the daimyo would stay in the domains.
Additionally the demands for merchants supplying
the samurai population of Edo with everything they
needed was initially dealt with by male migratory
workers, setting up fromthe provinces but keeping
their families at home. So in the 17th century as sex
ratio of 170 men to a 100 women was normal and thus
Edo was a city of (temporary) bachelors or wifeless
men. Early on in the 17th century, in 1612, a brothel
owner Sh ji Jinemon, approached on behalf of a group
of colleagues the bakufu officials with the request to
establish a licensed and walled pleasure quarter.
Jinemons intention was to halt to proliferation of
brothels, which has hurting his business. Five years
after the submission of the request, the permission
was granted and an area of almost 12 acres outside
Edo was allocated to the brothel owners. And a little
over a year and a half later, the Yoshiwara opened for
business. It prospered and grew at an enormous rate.
A directory contained in the Azuma monogatari of 1642
lists 125 bordellos and 36 ageya (houses of assignation)
offering work to nearly a thousand courtesans. (Seigle,
1993: 34) The Yoshiwara became a highly regulated
and stratified society within society. But its fortunes
were not all good: fires affected the quarter heavily,
especially the devastating blaze of the 18th of the first
month of Meireki 2(1657), which completely laid the
Yoshiwara in ashes and forced it to move to an area
some three miles out of the city. In the 8th month
of the same year, the Shin Yoshiwara (new Yoshiwara)
was ready, but its distance fromthe city caused it to
take a while in becoming an attractive place for the
Edo male population to spend their time. But in two
years, things were back to normal:
Inside the quarter lived more than five hundred women of
pleasure, divided into three classes-tay , k shi and hashi-
competing and prospering night and day. The ageya thrived
on drinking parties. The clients were absorbed in popular music
and sake, their spirits soaring, their bodies buoyant, their hearts
aflutter.... and their clothes dishevelled. The courtesans
dresses, furniture, everything was back to the glorious
former days. (From: Tales of a grumbling otokodate, 1660
cited in Seigle, 1993: 55)
The Yoshiwara developed into a world on its own with
rules and regulations so complicated that in order not
to appear a complete fool, the digestion of a guide
book was imperative. As early 1680 a famous Kyoto
compendiumon how to behave as a fashionable visitor
to the pleasure quarters appeared, spelling out his
correct appearance, how to behave, which gifts to
bring and how to properly negotiate the hurdles that
we thrown before the visitor in his path towards the
bliss of a an assignment with the courtesan of his
choice. This Kyoto book was of little use in the Edo
Yoshiwara and of course fashions and rules could
change overnight. So early in the 18th century
Yoshiwara instruction booklets started to appear and
the goal was to instruct the visitor, to behave with ts ,
sophistication. The concept of ts developed over time
into a role model for aspiring dandies of Edo as Seigle
(1993:132) calls them. These Champions of the
Yoshiwara were masters of etiquette, speakers of the
Yoshiwara lingo and completely in the know about
all the comings and goings in this shady world of paid
enjoyment. Apart fromthe instruction books, one
could also buy the guidebooks, or Yoshiwara saiken,
a kind of Michelin guides to entertainment and one
of the mainstays of the publisher Tsutaya Juzaburo/
who had his business initially just outside the
Yoshiwaras main gate and who produced every year
fromthe third year of An-ei (1774) until his death
one or two guides which would list the courtesans,
their houses and specialities. In 1783 he bought the
monopoly on the production of saiken, producing
them bi-annually; he immediately moved to down-
town Edo, near Nihonbashi indicating a shift in clien-
tele. His saiken sold not only to the visitors of the
Yoshiwara, but also to those for whomthe Yoshiwara
was financially beyond their means: it was even said
that the wives of Edo men bought the books to figure
out which courtesans their husbands were seeing!
Much of our information regarding the goings on in
the Yoshiwara is however derived fromthe Yoshiwara
focussed literature which developed in the 18th centu-
ry, subsumed under the termgesaku, frivolous writing,
particularly the sharebon, (books of wit) and kiby shi
(lit. yellowbacks, referring to their covers, but a kind
4.
Kiyonaga Hashira-e
A new Years entertainer
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
4.
Kiyonaga Hashira-e
A new Years entertainer
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
15 16
of comics combining text and image on one page).
Sharebon found their formaround 1770 and became
an extremely popular and successful genre. Hibbett
describes it succinctly as follows: Published in deceptively
drawn little pocket-sized books, this minor genre of comic prose
often combines pedantic wit with realistic humorous dialogue
which seems as if it might have been overheard in a Yoshiwara
teahouse. (Hibbitt, 2002: p.91)
These sharebon were in endless demand mostly by
young men, but also with the courtesans working
in the Yoshiwara, who were often protagonists in the
stories. (May, 1983:116). Together with the illustrated
kiby shi, sometimes called comics for adults, they
created an atmosphere of insiders and outsiders, of
endless levels of inside knowledge, a culture of joking,
of double entendre. In this world, sons were sent by
their fathers to the Yoshiwara, not so much as Seigle
writes (1993: 137) for sex education but because one
had to avoid at all costs being labelled a yabo (boor: the
polar opposite of ts), a culturally uninformed outsider.
The Yoshiwara provided ample material for the two
forms of gesaku. Additionally it was the subject of
endless Senry, (comic 17-syllable verse) and Ky ka (lit.
mad verse, a 31-syllable poem) It will be clear that
the amount of sexual innuendo in all these literary
forms will have been tremendous. This whole world
in the Yoshiwara with its transient floating culture
functioned on the basis of sexual tension, sexual
promise and denial. It is not surprising that the rela-
tionship between the Yoshiwara and shunga is strong.
Henry Smith firmly states that the origin of the Edo
shunga (he choses the word makura-e) lies squarely
in the world of the brothel. (Smith, 1995:29) But one
can easily envisage that the world of shunga fitted
seamlessly into the world of wit, humour and inside
joking that was characteristic of the literary forms
discussed briefly above. And, although things changed
over time, the stage of many shunga books was often
the Yoshiwara.. But as Seigle points out (this volume,
p.000)) shunga were not produced for use in the
Yoshiwara. (See also, Seigle, 1993, p154)
Monta adds to this that it should be kept in mind that
most characters that appear in shunga are anonymous
common people of tremendous variety in age, occupa-
tion and identity:
In the actual world of shunga there are situations involving
courtesans and clients, but beyond that, there are people ranging
from young men and young women to elderly couples, from male
and female servants to married couples belonging to wealthy and
samurai families. In fact it is the quotidian scenes of lovemaking
in everyday life that is preponderant. (Monta, 2003 p.132)
Rests to say that the personnel involved in this float-
ing world cut across the various arts and occupations:
brothel owners, print artists, authors of sharebon,
authors of guidebooks, brothel visitors, publishers,
merchants selling stimulating pills, tobacconists, were
all meeting in this walled-in space which seemed to
be a giant centre of erotic entertainment, but was a bit
more than that: it provided a cover for free expression
in an otherwise stifling world.
The identities of Shunga
The variety of painted and printed erotic images in
Japanese art is enormous. Although the scope of this
volume is essentially the Edo period, it should not
be concluded that erotic imagery did not exist in the
periods preceding that. Depictions of sex of diverse
nature probably existed during the Heian period
(794-1185). A very limited number of scrolls or maki-
mono (horizontal hand scrolls) fromthe 12th through
the 14th century have survived. These makimono have
been produced alongside printed works all through
the Edo period and numerous examples have survived
fromthe 17th century. Generally they can be up to
10 metres long, consisting of silk or paper, with often
twelve scenes of sexual engagement. Their height may
vary froma mere eight centimetres to as high as 40
centimetres. The 17th century erotic scrolls do not
have, contrary to the contemporary narrative scrolls
a fixed sequence. They depict randomly various types
of sexual engagement. The characters at play are more-
over samurai, nobles and occasionally priests, rather
than the ch nin (townspeople) which dominate shunga
fromthe late 17th century.
The first printed shunga books seemto have origi-
nated in Kyoto, in the late 1650s but shunga book
production gained momentumin Edo around 1660.
The city was gradually recovering fromthe hardships
following the devastating Meireki fire three years
earlier, which killed over a hundred thousand people.
The first signed book of an erotic nature, by Hishi-
kawa Moronobu (c. 1618-1694) appeared in 1672. The
formats of his books varied enormously: Typology to
note? In 1680s one of the more important innovations
in the history of ukiyo-e took place: albums consisting
of single sheet o/ban sized prints were created, often
in the orihon (folding album) format. The importance
of the innovation lies in the possibility in providing
a truly continuous image, not broken up by the cen-
tral division which was inherent in the fukurotojibon
style of binding. The printing was of course in black
only (sumizuri) with occasional hand colouring. The
albumgenerally contained a sequence of twelve plates,
sometimes preceded by a preface of one or two pages.
These forms existed side by side throughout
the 17th and first half of the 18th century, only to be
challenged by the full-colour prints which found their
starting point around 1765 often published in folding
albumformat or as separate, unbound sheets in the
circles of the printmaker Suzuki Harunobu (1724?-
1770). Shortly afterwards, the full colour printed book
integrating text and images followed.
The individual prints, often produced in serial form
at the time of Harunobu took on the chu/ban format
(26 x 19 cm) and in the 1770s the o/ban format (38 x 25)
was adopted first by Isoda Koryu/sai.
Throughout the late 18th century and the first
two decades of the 19th century the o/ban format
remained dominant but gradually during the 1820-
30s the production of shunga became restricted to
the book formand to the privately published koban
(12.5 x 9 cm) surimono (lit. printed things, prints
published for a special occasion on request) or egoyo-
mi (calender prints). This latter format, the koban
egoyomi seems to have commenced around 1800 when
10.
Kiyonaga Hashira-e
A new Years entertainer
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
10.
Kiyonaga Hashira-e
A new Years entertainer
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
18 17
2 Anonymous
Makimono of twelve scenes,
c. late seventeenth century
Ink and colours on paper
A late-seventeenth century makimono
[607 x 34.8 cm], unfolds a sequence of
twelve scenes of lovemaking. A number
of stylistic elements typical of seven-
teenth century paintings are apparent,
such as the involvement of nobility
fromthe court, the rather buxom
women with their [straight cut off hair-
style.] [suihatsu]. Nudity dominates and
the skin of the participants is given tex-
ture by the use of gofun.
Collection Ferry Bertholet, Amsterdam
2a.
A young man visits a courtesan.
The womans shamisen (a type of three-
stringed lute) leans up against a six-
fold screen of decorated with gold leaf
depicting stylized clouds.
2b.
Two women enjoy themselves; one
woman has a dildo strapped to her
body. A naked Buddhist novice looks
on his erect penis supported by a strap
around his neck.
2c.
Two young samurai, their swords hung
on the bottomof a lacquered kimono
rack with robes above, engage with a
woman in a mnange trois. The
simultaneous enjoyment of one woman
by two men is not a common scene,
with the exception of situations where-
by a man interrupts a pair of lovers.
2d.
A samurai in full regalia penetrates
a court lady.
20 19
23 Isoda Korysai (1735-90)
Untitled chban series,
c. 1770
Korysai was the most prolific artist of
his time, especially in hashira-e (pillar
prints) and shunga. As might be expect-
ed, his early style was very close that
to of his teacher Harunobu, so much
so that there are a number of conflict-
ing attributions regarding their work.
However the attribution of this series
to Korysai is indisputable because
three designs are signed. Short conver-
sations are included within the design,
leaving the stylized cloud areas normal-
ly reserved for the text empty.
Collection Rene Scholten, The Hague
23a.
A man and a courtesan on the veranda
of a brothel in the Yoshiwara. They look
out over the Sumida River. To the left
on the opposite bank one catches a
glimpse of what might be the celebrat-
ed mikaeri yanagi, or gazing back willow
tree, fromwhich visitors would gaze
back towards the Yoshiwara the morn-
ing after a big night in the quarter. The
location is similar to cat. 14d. The sig-
nature Kory ga is visible on the painted
screen of bamboo in the background to
the left. Reference: Klompmakers (2001),
C1
23b.
A sambas [define sambaso] dancer
comes in for a quick romp with a cour-
tesan. Outside to the left one spies his
audience. As they engage in sex, the girl
pushes the performers wooden Okina
mask to one side. The dancers musical
paraphernalia an hourglass-shaped
drum(kotsuzumi) and bell-tree (suzu)
are on the kimono rack and floor.
Reference: Klompmakers (2001), C3
21
Kitagawa Utamaro
(1754-1806) (1753-1806)
40 Negai to itoguchi (The Prelude to
Desire) is the second of Utamaros
great shunga albums. Compared to
Utamakura, produced eleven years
earlier, the scale of the figures has
been reduced and erotic conversations
have been added.
The complete first-edition set contains
thirteen images, although the first
and rather innocuous composition
is sometimes missing in later editions.
The attribution to Utamaro is beyond
doubt. In the conversations between
the characters in the third plate, the
name Utamaru (another reading of the
characters for his name is mentioned.
Collection Ferry Bertholet, Amsterdam
Reference Lane (1996, vol. 9), 15; Asano and Clark
(1995), 280-81
40b.
A man sucks at his lovers nipple.
The dialogue on the image suggests
that they are both married but are
never-theless enjoying their adulterous
affair. He promises to leave his wife
soon, and asks her to keep her vulva
clean and not to enter in a relationship
with someone else.
40a.
A man, striped naked down to his loin-
cloth, is about to engage with his lover
who has been interrupted by his atten-
tions as she combs her long hair. Her
foot is reflected in the mirror.
40c 1+2.
A man, in a rather awkward position,
is trying to enter his lover. She, however,
is becoming impatient and in the
dialogue she asks himto stop fooling
around.
23
42b.
The viewer peers through a mosquito
net: a child is fast asleep, while his
mother moves towards her lover.
42 Kitagawa Utamaro
(1753-1806)
Ehon hana fubuki
(A Picture-book of Flowers
in Violent Bloom), 1802
Three-volume shunga book
The three-volume Ehon hana fubuki was
a collaborative effort between Utamaro
and the author Jippensha Ikku (1765-
1831). Ikku achieved notoriety
in the same year, 1802, with the publi-
cation of the ribald Tkaid-ch hizakurige
(Shanks Mare Along the Tkai Highway).
According to Asano and Clark (1995,
42a.
A beautiful Utamaro-esque composi-
tion, diagonally across the page, with
the man making love to a mother
suckling her child.
284, Ikku contributed the introduction
and the pornographic texts at the end
of each volume, while Utamaro added
the conversations within [and] the
images.
Collection Gerhard Pulverer, Cologne
24
42c.
A man takes a young woman against
an ox cart, her umbrella shielding her
against the downpour.
42d.
A woman mounts her visitor on
the veranda.