Dreams of Desire 62 (Hokusai)

Hokusai-Gods of Myriad Conjugal Delights-1821

Katsushika Hokusai is undoubtedly the most famous ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) artist of the Edo period. Not only was he responsible for the single most famous Japanese artwork, The Great Wave OffKanagawa, his The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife is the most widely known example of shunga (spring pictures), the astounding Japanese erotic art that flourished between the 17th and 19th centuries.

What is striking about ukiyo-e is that every major artist of the period produced shunga, including Eiri, Utamaro, Kuniyoshi, Kunisada and Eisen. Although shunga was subject to periodic censorship by the shogunate, this didn’t seem to affect its widespread popularity among all classes of Japanese society. It was also a highly profitable venture for the artist who could supplement their income for months with a single painting.

Below are examples of Hokusai’s work, including The Great Wave Off Kanagawa as well as some brillitantly executed shunga.

The Great Wave Off Kanagawa

Hokusai-Sea Cucumber

Hokusai-Entangled

Hokusai

Hokusai

Hokusai

Hokusai

Hokusai

Hokusai

Dreams of Desire 26 (Pictures of the Floating World)

The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife-Hokusai 1814

Hokusai’s  ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) woodcut design for the three volume collection of  erotic tales Young Pines from 1814 is the most famous example of shunga (pictures of spring; spring being a euphemism for sex) created by the one of the masters of Japanese art from the Edo period.

Depicting a shell diver being caressed intimately by two octopi, the surrounding text tells of the mutual pleasure experienced by both the woman and the octopi. However when the image was first seen in the West it was without a sufficient understanding of the accompanying text and critics, including Edmond de Goncourt interpreted the design as representing a non consensual act.

The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife influenced Felicien Rops, Rodin and Pablo Picasso who painted his own version in 1903, and along with other shuga shaped the perception of the exotically other Far East as an ultra-sophisticated, decadent playground, where eroticism had been refined by every possible means into a deviant art-form. The ultimate expression of this Orientalizing tendency  can be found in Octave Mirbeau’s opiated fantasy of a mythic China in Le Jardin des supplices (The Torture Garden).  In Japan it has been hugely influential and has spawned a whole sub-genre within anime and manga.