Shunga: sex and pleasure in Japanese art

In Shunga: sex and pleasure in Japanese Art, at the British Museum, pictures of man-man, man-woman or woman-woman are the motives of the printed erotic stories (on paper or silk) legally and openly sold - rarely suppressed - to people from all walks of life in Japan and China, between the XVII and the XIX century.

In Shunga, or 'amorous books', the everyday erotic act's movement is defined by the line. "Tangles of cloth create expressive forms around the taut lines of the bodies, like gushing rivers and pools". Colour and patterns have a secondary role, they give the image sensorial and sexual appeal and voluptuousness - some even more than the great Poem of the Pillow, The Tale of Genji (of about AD 1000), or The Ise Stories (of about AD 900s).

The explicitness of the act - through extremely big sexual organs, both male and female, sometimes in the act, others on the moment just before or just after - calls our attention to the subject of the narrative: "the woman's husband is away so she enjoys an unhurried night with her lover. Their bodies are locked together in a powerful embrace." Or "After three sessions the husband wants a rest, but the wife asks for at least five more." Bringing us from a dream world in to a pleasurable and carnal position.

Some of the works are printed on paper, and in particular segments we can see an overlay of paper over paper to create density. The pressure caused by the wood print, on the other hand, help the line to became more vivid, expression. Whereas, those works on silk have a hand sensibility, assurance and finesse that it unveils the painter mastery. Cherry blossoming, trees and flowers, arouses the mood and enriches the appeal for a natural act practice with all it's naturalness - an innocent hard to entangle when thinking of contemporary Europe, where imagery related to the sexual act was decree and expel from any dominion, public and private (only with the advent of the Baroque, this imagery has started to became more explicitly open, but still, only in the private sphere, reaching its high within an Modern European context at the transition to the XX century, with Art Nouveau).

What is really appealing and eloquent in this 'pillow books' is the sophisticated playfulness, intimacy, and beautifulness typical from the compositions, "indulging in ... outrageous flights of imagination." There are few delights in the world and "sex is essential to give pleasure to one's heart.