Outsized interestGIVEN Japan’s vast and barely concealed sex industry, it seems odd that a clutch of old woodblock prints known as shunga still has the power to shock. Shunga means “spring pictures”. They depict sometimes spectacular sexual contortions and come imbued with the power of taboo. For years they have largely been out of sight—until now.
The Eisei Bunko Museum in Tokyo is defying the taboo by showing 133 prints, on display until December 23rd. Many of the items in Japan’s first full shunga exhibition have been borrowed from the British Museum, which ran its own successful show in 2013-14. Over 20 Japanese galleries turned down the exhibition.
Shunga were firsthand-painted and were enjoyed exclusively by Japan’s upper classes. Then from the 1700s techniques for mass-producing woodblock prints created thousands of new designs—and a new readership among the fast-growing urban classes. The prints mocked official values and social mores: one depicts a widow going to a Buddhist...Continue reading
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