Hyakunin Joro Shinasadame

Shunga sex and pleasure in Japanese art Edited by Timothy Clark C. Andrew Gerstle Aki Ishigami Akiko Yano

Contents

Director’s Foreword Sponsor’s Foreword

6 8

The Censorship of Shunga in the Modern Era

List of Lenders 10 Contributing Authors 11 Acknowledgements 12

Shunga Studies in the Sho-wa Era (1926–89)

The Cultural Historical Significance and Importance of Japanese Shunga

14

278

I shiga m i A ki

290

Shiraku ra Y o shihik o

4 Contexts for Shunga 294 Traditional Uses of Shunga 296 Yam a m o t o Y u kari

Kob ayashi Tadashi

Introduction 16 What Was Shunga? 18 Ti m oth y C lar k a n d C . A n d r e w Ge r stle

Who Were the Audiences for Shunga?

34

Hayakawa M on ta

Published to accompany the exhibition Shunga: sex and pleasure in Japanese art at the British Museum from 3 October 2013 to 5 January 2014. Supported by Shunga in Japan LLP Part of Japan 400

The Distribution and Circulation of Erotic Prints and Books in the Edo Period

300

L a u ra M o retti

Cats 79–86

304

Shunga and Parody

318

C. A nd rew G erstl e

Cats 1–9

48

Cats 87–109

332

1 Early Shunga before 1765 Shunga Paintings before the ‘Floating World’

60 62

Popular Cults of Sex Organs in Japan

364

Cats 110–112

368

Grotesque Shunga

374

A kik o Yan o

Cats 10–19

74

Chinese Chunhua and Japanese Shunga 92

Su z u ki K enk o

I shiga m i A ki

Ishiga m i A ki

Cats 20–22

104

Violence in Shunga

378

H igu chi K a z u taka This exhibition has been made possible by the provision of insurance through the Government Indemnity Scheme. The British Museum would like to thank the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and Arts Council England for providing and arranging this indemnity. © 2013 The Trustees of the British Museum The authors have identified their right to be identified as the authors of this work. First published in 2013 by The British Museum Press A division of The British Museum Company Ltd 38 Russell Square, London WC1B 3QQ britishmuseum.org/publishing

Shunga and the Rise of Print Culture

108

Cats 113–116

382

Cats 23–37

120

Foreign Connections in Shunga

390

- A sa n o S h u g o

2 Masterpieces of Shunga 1765–1850 152 The Essence of Ukiyo-e Shunga 154 Kob ayashi Tadashi

T i m o n Sc reech

Cats 117–121

394

Children in Shunga

404

A kik o Yano

Erotic Books as Luxury Goods

158

Shunga and the Floating World

410

162

Cats 122–147

418

Cats 38–61

170

The Tale of Genji in Shunga

228

5 Shunga in the Meiji Era Erotic Art of the Meiji Era (1868–1912)

452 454

Cats 62–67

234

Papers used by The British Museum Press are recyclable products and the manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

3 Censorship Timeline of Censorship Shunga and Censorship in the Edo Period (1600–1868)

242 244 246

Many of the works illustrated in this book are from the collection of the British Museum. Museum reference numbers are included in the image captions. Further information about the Museum and its collection can be found at britishmuseum.org.

J e n n ife r P r e st on

A catalogue reference for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-0-7141-2476-6 Designed by Andrew Shoolbred Printed in Spain by Graphos SA, Barcelona

Frontispiece: detail from cat. 53, see pp. 208–11

Ellis Ti n i os

Listening to the Voices in Shunga

Mats u ba R yo k o

Hayakawa M on ta

S at o S ator u

Graph of approximate output of shunga print series and books Cats 68–78

259 260

R o sina B u ckla nd

Cats 148–157

464

The Modern West’s Discovery of Shunga

478

Ricard B ru

Cats 158–165

490

Biographies of Shunga Artists and Authors 507 Concordance of Shunga Titles of Works Exhibited 511 Bibliography 513 Photographic credits 525 Index 526

List of Lenders

Contributing Authors

Denmark

AKAMA Ryo- (AR), Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto ASANO Shu-go- (AS), The Museum Yamato Bunkakan, Nara

Michael Fornitz collection

Ricard BRU (RiB), Barcelona City Council Culture Institute, Barcelona Japan

Rosina BUCKLAND (RoB), National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh

Art Research Center, Ritsumeikan University

Timothy CLARK (TC), The British Museum, London

Hakutakuan collection

Alan CUMMINGS (AC), SOAS, University of London

International Research Center for Japanese Studies

Julie Nelson DAVIS (JD), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Ishiguro Keisho- collection

Menno FITSKI (MF), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Itasaka Noriko collection

Amaury GARCÍA RODRÍGUEZ (AGR), El Colegio de México, Mexico City

Mitsui Memorial Museum

C. Andrew GERSTLE (CAG), SOAS, University of London

Private collection

Alfred HAFT (AH), The British Museum, London

Taki Rentaro- collection

HAYAKAWA Monta (HM), International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto

Uragami Mitsuru collection

HIGUCHI Kazutaka (HKa), Mitsui Memorial Museum, Tokyo

Netherlands

Monika HINKEL (MH), SOAS, University of London HINOHARA Kenji (HKe), Ukiyo-e Ota Memorial Museum of Art, Tokyo

Rijksmuseum

ISHIGAMI Aki (IA), Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto ISHIGURO Keisho- (IK), The Japan Society for Arts and History of Photography KOBAYASHI Fumiko (KF), Ho-sei University, Tokyo

UK

KOBAYASHI Tadashi (KT), Emeritus, Gakushu-in University, Tokyo MATSUBA Ryo-ko (MR), Nanzan University, Nagoya

The British Museum

Laura MORETTI (LM), University of Cambridge

Ebi collection Israel Goldman collection

Joshua MOSTOW (JM), University of British Columbia, Vancouver NAITO Masato (NMa), Keio- University, Tokyo

Matsuba Foundation

NAKANO Mitsutoshi (NMi), Emeritus, Kyushu University

Muban Foundation

Jennifer PRESTON (JP), SOAS, University of London

Jeffrey W. Pollard and Ooi-Thye Chong collection Private collection

SADAMURA Koto (SK), University of Tokyo SATO Satoru (SS), Jissen Women’s University, Tokyo

Victoria & Albert Museum

Timon SCREECH (TS), SOAS, University of London

Ferdinand Bertholet collection Private collection

Naoko SHIMAZU (NS), Birkbeck College, University of London USA Brooks McCormick Jr collection

SHIRAKURA Yoshihiko (SY), Independent scholar SUZUKI Kenko- (SK), Kyoto Seika University

Private collections

TANAKA Yu-ko (TY), Ho-sei University, Tokyo Ellis TINIOS (ET), Emeritus, University of Leeds YAMAMOTO Yukari (YY), Tama Art University and Wako- University, Tokyo Akiko YANO (AY), SOAS, University of London

10

List of Lenders

Contributing Authors

11

68 Hyakunin joro- shinasadame (Commentaries on One Hundred Young Women), 1723

Nishikawa Sukenobu (artist, 1671–1750) and Hachimonji Jisho- (author, d. 1745) Large-size illustrated book, woodblock, 2 vols, published by Hachimonjiya Hachizaemon, Kyoto, 28.5 x 19.5 cm (covers)

This work depicts in two volumes the everyday life of Edo-period women, collecting in its pages images of court and samurai ladies, townswomen, country girls, geisha and sex workers, who perform a kaleidoscope of daily tasks and amusements. The images are preceded by considerable comment on the different kinds of women and their activities. Volume one begins with a female emperor and court ladies (top), and then introduces samurai women and a broad range of classes of women at various tasks. Volume two, in contrast, begins with ‘professional’ women of pleasure, the high-ranked courtesans of Shimabara, Kyoto’s official pleasure quarter (bottom). We are then introduced to the women of Edo’s Yoshiwara and Osaka’s Shinmachi quarters, leading to the final image in the book, a ‘night hawk’ streetwalker, or yotaka. All the women are depicted as elegant and gentle, one hardly different from the other. Sex workers were officially considered to be outcasts, below the class and status ranking system. So giving them equal space in the same book to all the other recognized classes put together was significant. This is further complicated by the fact that in the Edo period the word ‘joro- ’ of the title could refer to upper-class women and to women in general, as well as to sex workers. Hyakunin joro- shinasadame was published in Kyoto in 1723, immediately after the banning of erotic books (ko- shokubon), and it is famous today because it was censored by the Bakufu authorities, even though it shows only women and includes absolutely no scenes of sex or romance. This title, and its erotic sequel Hime kagami, which does depict samurai and courtiers having sex, appeared at a period of high tension during the Kyo-ho- reforms of the 1720s, particularly with regard to the newly enacted regulations on publishing.1 These books may have been banned simply because they transgressed a fundamental premise of the samurai government – strict distinctions of social class and status. Any attempt to make different spheres of social life appear to be equal and homogenous was considered an affront to the Tokugawa system. Later editions of the book, even in the modern era, often excluded the empress illustration. [AGR]

The British Museum, Asia, 1979,0305,0.70.1-2 Provenance: Jack Hillier Literature: Suzuki Ju-zo- 1979; Kurakazu 2003, pp. 30–40; Buckland 2010, p. 31; Ishigami 2013a, pp. 71–85 Scenes illustrated: (Above) Volume one begins with an image of three court ladies of the highest status: a female emperor, an emperor’s consort and a princess. (Below) Volume two, in contrast, begins at the other end of the official social scale, showing sex workers from the Shimabara pleasure quarter in Kyoto. Six elegant women are shown in the street (from the right): tayu- (highest-class courtesan), shinzo- (teenage apprentice), hikifune (assistant), yarite (manager), kamuro (child attendant) and tsubone (lower rank). 1 See Rodríguez 2013. Jenny Preston argues that Sukenobu’s erotic book Fu- fu narabi no oka of 1714 may have contributed to the 1722 ban on ko-shokubon; see cat. 69.

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Censorship

Censorship

261