Celebrating sexual scenarios that appear both erotic and humorous is Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japenese Art, a new exhibit at The British Musuem in London. Shunga — which translates literally to “spring pictures” (aka sex, aka porn)—features imagery created between 1600 and 1900 by an array of Japenese artists including Katsushika Hokusai and Kitagawa Utamaro. The exhibit features an overwhelming amount of entangled limbs, phallic close-ups, and a variety of sexual positions, which definitely asserts the museum’s sugggestion that, “Parental guidance [is] advised for visitors under 16 years.” Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art is on exhibit through January 5, 2014.
The British Museum
Okumura Masanobu, "Some Iro No Yama Neya No Hinagata (Dyeing Patterns for a Secluded Bedroom)," c. 1736-41
Matsuba collection, London
Sugimura Jihei, Untitled, c. 1681-1687
Sebastian Izzard, New York
Katsukawa Shuncho, "Koshoku Zue Juni Ko (Erotic Pictures for the Twelve Months)"
International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto
Torii Kiyonaga, "Sode No Maki (Hand Scroll for the Sleeve)," c. 1785
The British Museum
Kawanabe Kyōsai, Detail From Three Comic Shunga Paintings, c. 1871–89
The British Museum
Chobunsai Eishi, "Shunsho Ikkoku," c. 1790's
Scott Johnson, Kyoto
Kitagawa Utamaro, "Utamakura (Poem of the Pillow)," c. 1788
The British Museum
