Erotic/Pornographic art/prints and illustrations [merged]

[mac1]

Friedrich Wilhelm Kleukens

[mac1]

Japan

[mac1]

Jean Dulac (1947)

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by mac1

Japan

Japan has an incredible history of erotic illustration. Folks may be familiar with the contemporary comic-style "hentai" art, but there are centuries of earlier illustrations, to which these images belong.

The terms used were "Shunga" (literally "Spring Pictures", 春画 in Japanese), "Higa" ("Secret Pictures") and "Makura-e" (pillow pictures). The terms "shunga" and "higa" originate as

an abbreviation of a longer Chinese name, shunkyu higa (“secret pictures from the Spring Palace”)
which refers to ancient Chinese beliefs about the balancing of yin and yang in imperial erotic practice.

What's notable is that some of the most famous print artists, like Hokusai, did erotica. The most famous shunga of them all, by Hokusai, can't be posted here. This image is usually called "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" in English but the Japanese title was "the Pearl Diver and the Octopus". Japanese pearl divers were usually young women, and were (and remain) an object of erotic fascination . . . kinda the "beach babes" of Nippon.

Of contemporary Japanese illustrators, I assume most here will be familiar with the amazingly polished airbrush work of Sorayama,


More Sorayama can be found earlier in this thread, in Kelio's post 190
http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/sho...&postcount=190

and perhaps also with the zaftig fetish girls of Namio Harukawa



More Namio can be found in post 169
http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/sho...&postcount=169

Here's a name that may be new, a very edgy/funny artist named Toshio Saeki. A lot of his work is a bit too odd for me to post here, but this image reveals both his style, and an idea. The idea of the chair coming alive is a standard trope in Japanese supernatural stories-- anything that belonged to someone can become haunted. Definitely an idea I haven't seen before. Much of Saeki's work relates to traditional Japanese stories, even if its done in a modern manga-like style.



That's a long way of saying that when it comes to erotic illustration "Japan" is an entire universe to explore. There's so much that's skillful and interesting, plus more than a few things that make you say "huh"?

Take Utagawa Kunisada's remarkable “Beanman and Beanwoman climb genital mountains” (1827), a sort of a kinky take on "Jack and the Beanstalk". Utagawa was a very successful artist in his day, more popular at the time than folks we know now like Hiroshige and Hokusai.



Folks interested in this subject can download the highly recommended book: "Japanese Erotic Fantasies: Sexual Imagery of the Edo Period"

http://k2s.cc/file/0f258a6a179b1/5axm3.Japanese.Erotic.Fantasies.Sexual.Imagery.of.the.Edo.Period.pdf

props to original poster of this -- not my link.

[mac1]

Charles Roka cont...

[milroy]

Hokosai's "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" can be found on Wikipedia

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Originally Posted by milroy

Hokosai's "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" can be found on Wikipedia

Can be found virtually everywhere-- its the most famous shunga image. But not here; was told [nicely] by a mod that the octopus on girl action is not welcome. This is a problem with Japanese erotic material; because they're animists, they have a lot of animal spirits, and some of these erotic images violate western norms.

But there's a huge amount that can be shown. One of their particular interests was huge penises, and hair vaginas . . . if that floats your boat, its a conucopia of furry beavers and swollen members. The first image is a particularly nice example-- has a really "dirty" feel to it.

What's particularly ironic is that today this would be censored in Japan . . . similarly the girl on girl action with dildo. Very graphic, and today the Japanese would censor this. Starting in the late 19th century, the not-at-all prudish Japanese rather randomly adopted Western standards in order to appear civilized, and curiously, they've kept them.



The Japanese show a lot of compositional creativity. These images show vulvas seen in hand mirrors . . .



One of the big names in ukiyo-e and erotica is the late 18th century artist Kitagawa Utamaro. This is more suggestive, less explicit, but a fine piece of work

[triedandtested]

Sorry to hear "The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife" is not acceptable on this Forum - but as a newcomer here I'm not going to start arguing with the mods! The interesting thing (to me at least) is that classic Japanese erotic art concerned with the erotic potential of the octopus leads fairly directly to "tentacle porn", a niche in today's vast Japanese porn industry where girls are shown being pleasured by multi-tentacled sci-fi monsters.

[mac1]

More from Leone Frollo

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Originally Posted by mac1

More from Leone Frollo

I'm a great fan of Frollo, very talented. A few scans (not mine) direct from artwork-- he's so prolific, he's one of the great talents where you can buy original work for a not-crazy price.




Reminds me a lot of Milo Manara. They both did illustrations for a beautiful Italian magazine of erotica, called "Glamour International". I posted some details about that publication in another thread:
http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/sho...d.php?t=177903