Posted by John Fiorillo (66.125.228.238) on April 01, 2004 at 19:34:48:
In Reply to: revealing bust in ukiyo-e posted by Curious on March 25, 2004 at 10:39:17:
Although many ukiyo-e prints are as you describe, erotic prints (shunga) include a high percentage of designs with partial or full nudes. Nevertheless, the emphasis on the body and the sexualization of its parts was far less established in Edo-period Japanese art than in Western art. Why a tradition of the artistic nude never took hold in Japan until the 20th century (after influence from the West) is still a matter of debate. You might read the interesting though provocative ideas offered by Timon Screech (in his book, Sex and The Floating World: Erotic Images in Japan 1700-1820. Univ. Hawaii Press, 1999, page 104), who argues that "... there was no nude genre ... male and female were not polarized but were said to hold the majority of their bodily traits in common ... the curves and indentations of male and female bodies were taken as being the same ... [and] did not entice the gaze ... In fact ... it was clothing that made gender (and erotic) statements powerful." Among other things, Screech speaks about the "erotic value of cloth" and contrasts its importance in ukiyo-e and shunga with Western artistic traditions. If all this is true, Japanese artists would have had less incentive to explore what we in the West call "The Nude" because the subject would have lacked the erotic charge it possesses in the West.
John