Koikawa Shozan (1821 ~1907 ) A Leaf of shunga print, 1860. Koban.
It was traditional in Japan to present new brides with illustrated books of erotic art - often sexually explicit. Scholarship remains divided on the consumption of shunga; the evidence from book-lenders and booksellers is that women were consumers of shunga and there had been a tradition for brides to be given explicit painted shunga scrolls in the manner of the kama-sutra in India. Japanese shunga was produced on a vast scale by the best artists of the day and with the tacit approval of the state. What fascinates about Japanese pornographic art is the absence of the solitary female nude. Even in the most explicit shunga there is little or no nudity; to be clothed and to reveal was considered a highly sexually charged situation. Nudity in Japan was commonplace, with women and men scantily clad in the summer months, and mixed bathing and public washing commonplace. The naked form was therefore divested of its power to titillate. The act of having sex however was highly regarded and there was nothing shameful about both sexes enjoying sexual encounters.
Puritanical American merchants when arriving in Japan in the 1850’s and 1860’s were horrified by these displays of public nudity; openly visible prostitution on a vast, organised and state sanctioned fashion… the commonplace availability of explicit pornography and what amounted to indentured slavery of girls as young as ten years.
The recent shunga exhibition at the British Museum, even after all these years and in our tolerant age was controversial and required endless media apologies from the director of the museum. Here we have an anonymous shunga leaf from a publication. Decorated with gold powder and burnishing, it is a small, precious thing.. leftover scraps of a culture now lost. The impression, colour and condition are very good.
12 x 18 cm.
