page_title: Shunga
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Shunga / History
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Тории Киёнобу I (1664-1729), Сюнга, 18 Х 25,5 см (лист), ксилография.
context_page_description: Shunga is a Japanese term for erotic art. Most shunga are a type of ukiyo-e, usually executed in woodblock print format. While rare, there are extant erotic painted handscrolls which predate ukiyo-e. Translated literally, the Japanese word shunga means picture of spring; "spring" is a common euphemism for sex.
  The ukiyo-e movement as a whole sought to express an idealisation of contemporary urban life and appeal to the new chōnin class. Following the aesthetics of everyday life, Edo-period shunga varied widely in its depictions of sexuality. As a subset of ukiyo-e it was enjoyed by all social groups in the Edo period, despite being out of favour with the shogunate. Almost all ukiyo-e artists made shunga at some point in their careers.
context_section_description: Shunga was heavily influenced by illustrations in Chinese medicine manuals beginning in the Muromachi era (1336 to 1573). Zhou Fang, a notable Tang-dynasty Chinese painter, is also thought to have been influential. He, like many artists of his time, tended to draw genital organs in an oversized manner, similar to a common shunga topos.  While the literal meaning of the word "shunga" is significant, it is in fact a contraction of shunkyū-higi-ga (春宮秘戯画), the Japanese pronunciation for Chinese sets of twelve scrolls depicting the twelve sexual acts that the crown prince had to carry out as an expression of yin yang.
  The Japanese influences of shunga date back to the Heian period (794 to 1185).  At this point, it was found among the courtier class. Through the medium of narrative handscrolls, sexual scandals from the imperial court or the monasteries were depicted, and the characters tended to be limited to courtiers and monks.
  The style reached its height in the Edo period (1603 to 1867).  Thanks to woodblock printing techniques, the quantity and quality increased dramatically.  There were repeated governmental attempts to suppress shunga, the first of which was an edict issued by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1661 banning, among other things, erotic books known as kōshokubon (好色本) (literally "lewdness books").  While other genres covered by the edict, such as works criticising daimyōs or samurai, were driven underground by this edict, shunga continued to be produced with little difficulty.
  The Kyōhō Reforms, a 1722 edict, was much more strict, banning the production of all new books unless the city commissioner gave permission. After this edict, shunga went underground.  However, since for several decades following this edict, publishing guilds saw fit to send their members repeated reminders not to sell erotica, it seems probable that production and sales continued to flourish. Further attempts to prevent the production of shunga were made with the Kansei Reforms under  Emperor Kōkaku in the 1790s.
  According to Monta Hayakawa and C. Andrew Gerstle, westerners during the nineteenth century were less appreciative of shunga because of its erotic nature. In the journal of Francis Hall, an American businessperson who arrived in Yokohama in 1859, he described shunga as "vile pictures executed in the best style Japanese art." Hayakawa stated that Hall was shocked and disgusted when on two separate occasions his Japanese acquaintances and their wives showed him shunga at their homes. Shunga also faced problems in Western museums in the twentieth century; Peter Webb reported that while engaged in research for a 1975 publication, he was initially informed that no relevant material existed in the British Museum, and when finally allowed access to it, he was told that it "could not possibly be exhibited to the public" and had not been catalogued. In 2014 he revisited the museum, which had an exhibition entirely of shunga "proudly displayed".
  The introduction of Western culture and technologies at the beginning of the Meiji era (1868–1912), particularly the importation of photo-reproduction techniques, had serious consequences for shunga. For a time, woodblock printing continued to be used, but figures began to appear in prints wearing Western clothing and hairstyles. Eventually, shunga could no longer compete with erotic photography, leading to its decline.
  The art of shunga provided an inspiration for the Shōwa (1926–1989) and Heisei (1989–2019) art in Japanese video games, anime and manga known in the Western world as hentai and known formally in Japan as jū hachi kin (adult-only, literally "18-restricted"). Like shunga, hentai is sexually explicit in its imagery.
caption: Torii Kiyonobu I. Woodblock. Shunga. 1703.
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