2. Spring Pictures or Japanese Shunga Art
This is one I discovered at the British Museum in the Shunga exhibition ‘Spring pictures’ or shunga, art was produced in Japan between 1600-1900. This sexually explicit work is often tender, funny, beautiful and undoubtedly accomplished. Shunga art was produced by some of the masters of Japanese art, including Utamaro and Hokusai. Shunga were mostly produced within the popular school known as ‘pictures of the floating world’ (ukiyo-e), by celebrated artists such as Hishikawa Moronobu (died 1694), Kitagawa Utamaro (died 1806) and Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). Earlier, medieval narrative art in Japan had already mixed themes of sex and humour. Luxurious shunga paintings were also produced for ruling class patrons by traditional artists such as members of the Kano school, sometimes influenced by Chinese examples. This was very different from the situation in contemporary Europe, where religious bans and prevailing morality enforced an absolute division between ‘art’ and ‘pornography’. This piece explores bestiality as only the Japanese can imagine.