This sumptous guide explains the cultural forces behind Shunga images and why the Japanese find them so erotic. It also reveals the influence of Shunga on great Western art movements such as Impressionism. Exquisitely and abundantly illustrated, this is the most comprehensively informative book ever to be written on the subject - truly a masterclass'.'

Stories, terms and extracts of illustrated scrolls, known as pillow books, that reflect the atmosphere of Shunga or Japanese eroticism.

The definitive book on Japanese erotic art or shunga

Japanese erotic art, shunga, has a long history, with thousands of paintings, prints, and illustrated books produced, mostly from the seventeenth to late nineteenth centuries. Shunga literally means picture of spring spring being a common Japanese euphemism for sex and the works celebrate all facets of human sexuality with great candor. Unlike earlier books that have tended to focus on individual artists, this new publication has a thematic structure, covering the whole spectrum of sexual practice and expression, including adultery and jealousy, voyeurism, orgasm, and violent sex and death. Using images from his own unparalleled collection, Ofer Shagan brings the rich and vast world of shunga to modern view, highlighting the messages, symbols, and humor that often appear in the background but are fundamentally significant for understanding the messages in the art.

In early modern Japan, thousands of sexually explicit paintings, prints, and illustrated books with texts were produced, euphemistically called spring pictures (shunga). Frequently tender, funny and beautiful, shunga were mostly done within the popular school known as pictures of the floating world (ukiyo-e), by celebrated artists such as Utamaro and Hokusai. Erotic Japanese art was heavily suppressed in Japan from the 1870s, and as a result it has only been made possible to publish unexpurgated examples in Japan within the last 20 years. This publication presents this fascinating art in its historical and cultural context, drawing on the latest scholarship and featuring over 400 images of works from major public and private collections.

A gorgeous presentation devoted to the art of Japanese eroticism, drawn from the Honolulu Museum of Art's rare and distinguished collection. The Japanese paintings and prints called shunga (literally "spring pictures") reflected the thriving sexual culture of early modern Japan and depicted with sensitivity and nuance the private lives of various social types, from courtesans and Kabuki actors to ordinary townspeople. Organized around a series of exhibitions at the Honolulu Museum of Art, this sumptuous volume presents art from the museum's vast holdings of ukiyo-e prints, woodblock-printed books, and paintings, particularly those originating from the collections of scholar Richard D. Lane and famed author James A. Michener. These fascinating works, dating from the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries, explore Japan's sexual culture (including issues of gender and the country's ever-evolving sex industry) with humor as well as a surprisingly sophisticated literary and art-historical approach. Sure to become a collector's item, this gorgeously designed publication offers stunning color plates showcasing numerous and unusual examples of exquisite Japanese erotica. Texts by leading scholars of shunga and ukiyo-e complete this treasure album of a book.