Japanese Prints

One of the very first hand-colored shunga-style ukiyo-e prints. Homosexuality had never been viewed as a sin in Japanese society and was considered as the purest form of love.

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For this amorous couple, the seduction has just begun with the loosening of the ‘obi’ (the woman’s sash). Erotic signifiers enhance the scene. For example, the young beauty raises her right sleeve toward her mouth in a gesture of suppressed emotion. Water imagery evokes the woman’s sexuality, with feminine or ‘yin’ erotic symbols in the garden stream behind the lovers and in the waves on the robe of the young gallant, while the flowering ume on the standing screen serves as a metaphor for male or ‘yang’ sexuality.

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One of a series “The Fashion of Flower Viewing at Ueno”

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