Interest
London Ukiyo-E Japanese Art Exhibit Features 400-Year-Old Erotica
posted on by Bamboo Dong
An upcoming exhibit at the British Museum entitled "Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art" sheds light on over 400 years of erotic ukiyo-e (a genre of Japanese woodblock prints), many of which were banned from Japanese institutions for much of the 20th century.
The exhibit features works from Japanese master artists such as Katsushika Hokusai (famous for his iconic and instantly recognizable The Great Wave at Kanagawa print, but perhaps less so for his Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, depicting a woman receiving pleasure from an octopus and the octopus' young), Kitagawa Utamaro, and Utagawa Kunisada.
For more information about the historical and cultural importance of these shunga ("spring pictures), the Guardian has a well-written story on the exhibit, contextualized within art history and cultural appreciation.
For more images from the exhibit, check out Huffington Post's article here.
[Source: Huffington Post]
