Edo Nishiki Azumo Bunko [Shunga]

The first edition with 23 Shunga prints, 17 double page. Shunga is the Japanese term for erotic art. Literally, it means 'Image of Springtime', springtime being a euphemism for, and an element of, a style expressing sexuality.

The title translates literally as Brocades of Edo, Library of the East. This appears not to be a metaphor, but a literal reference, Nishike-e referring either to brocaded images (embossed with paper) or more generally prints whose brocade constitutes one of the technical phases of the coloring of Japanese prints. The Library of the East is a reference to Edo, the capital of the east, and its famous library, Yoshimusha, where books from the 17th century onwards had been kept and where the production of prints must have taken place.

So-called “accordion” Japanese binding, sewn. Brown check covers, title label in gold on a red background. Label missing from first volume, one with blurred writing. Covers and edges rubbed. Small wormhole to margin of two leaves of one volume. Thumbstaining to lower margin of initial leaves due to repeated handling. Browning to head of first two leaves of volume lacking label. The set good and fresh overall. The colors are particularly vibrant.

Using tight grids, Kuniyoshi knocks out the clichés of the Shunga style, giving the characters outsized members, and arranging them in refined scenes on great colorful backgrounds. The scenes are dotted with everyday objects, bento boxes, mosquito swatters, earrings, tea sets, and so on. Like most Shunga, the participants are usually dressed sumptuously, save for three of the prints, where the woman is completely naked. Though he celebrates coupling in a natural way, Kuniyoshi lingers on the amorous embrace, on the start of the sexual act. Three images close the three volumes, each an anatomical close-up of the female sex for the first two volumes, and a male member inside a female sex for the last. Here, one can see the principle of female and male energy and the accomplishment of the interpenetration of the two energies or principles, known in Chinese as yin and yang. This sexual symbolism is found throughout Asia. Even today, genitals are censored in Japan, though it is unclear whether it is this taboo of the anatomical that led to the featuring of genitals in Shunga, or it became an obligatory motif of the form.

Kuniyoshi, like many of the great artists of the Ukiyo-e, belonged to the Utagawa school, which dominated print production in the 19th century. It included Toyokuni, Hiroshige, and also a travelling companion of Kuniyoshi's, Kunisada. The Shunga genre was at this time essentially supplied by the Utagawa school and Kuniyoshi and Kunisada were competitors in this field, one focusing on pared-down images, the other on decorative profusion.