Shunga

SHUNGA
Spring pic­tures

Shun­ga is the tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese term for erot­ic paint­ings and prints, also known as pil­low paint­ings (makura‑e) or secret paint­ings (higa). Shun­ga illus­tri­erten urbane Vergnü­gun­gen und bürg­er­liche All­t­agsphänomene rund um die The­ater- und Vergnü­gungsvier­tel von Edo, dem heuti­gen Tokio. The for­mal treat­ment of naked bod­ies and the some­times mul­ti­lay­ered arrange­ments of kimono folds clear­ly set Shun­ga apart from nat­u­ral­is­tic depic­tions of love­mak­ing. Char­ac­ter­is­tic are the anatom­i­cal detail, part­ly extreme body posi­tions and over­sized gen­i­tals. Often Shun­ga also show humor­ous scenes. Almost all famous ukiyo‑e artists also designed erot­ic wood­block prints. Uta­maro (ca. 1753/54–1806) trans­formed Harunobu’s (ca. 1725–1770) orig­i­nal­ly dreamy erot­ic scenes into more explic­it depic­tions. Uta­maro gave more nat­u­ral­ness to the genre and also showed semi-erot­ic domes­tic scenes such as beau­ty(bijin-ga) groom­ing. Dur­ing the Mei­ji era (1868–1912), the qual­i­ty of shun­ga var­ied. The focus was no longer on beau­ty, but rather on erot­ic motifs. The spring paint­ings, which were banned by the gov­ern­ment, were sold unsigned under the table.