An elegant image depicting a young beauty biting a handkerchief, with an apparently abashed expression while rocking back and forth on top of the man who has deflowered her. At first sight the depiction seems to be a peaceful encounter between two lovers but the dialogue reveals something different: Woman: ‘You told me to come […]
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‘The Deflowering of a Regretful Lady’ By Shigenobu
Shigenobu’s Focus On the Female Genitalia
A rendezvous between two quarelling lovers. It is close to the style of the Utagawa school, but not quite. The composition is explicitly designed to display the forcefully erect penis and the smallest details of the female genitalia. These details are reminiscent to the popular close-up scenes in shunga books (see Fig.3.). Click HERE for more striking shunga designs […]
Yanagawa Shigenobu’s Bizarre Masterpiece With a “Southern Barbarian” Couple
The final (the 12th) plate from Yanagawa Shigenobu (1787-1833)’s ‘Willow Storm‘-series (late 1820s) is an emulation of the trendy copper etchings of the time. It shows a scene from the boudoir of a “Southern Barbarian” (European). Unrivaled Not even the great Hokusai (1760-1849) ever created a print like this one. In fact, there is not […]
Shigenobu’s Shocking Gang Rape Scene With a Vigorous Victim
The following forceful shunga design by Yanagawa Shigenobu (1787-1833) is the 10th plate from his masterpiece ‘Willow Storm‘ published in the late 1820s. Palanquin Bearers It exhibits a gang rape scene featuring a courageous female victim fighting off her attackers. The four involved men seem to be palanquin bearers. The man who puts his fingers into […]
Neo Shunga Artist Zoe Lacchei: Italian by Birth, Japanese in Spirit
Tattoo art and shunga are fairly closely intertwined. The search term ‘tattoo shunga‘ in Google Images offers an extensive amount of entertaining examples of this. Upon closer examination, we can see that many contemporary tattoo artists have embraced the aesthetics of ukiyo-e and shunga. A striking example of this, is the highly-skilled Italian Pop-surrealist painter and […]
Yashima Gakutei or Hokusai? Who Designed These Amazing Shunga Books?
In the past the mesmerizing erotic book set called ‘Kurawa no tanoshimi ‘ (c.1820s) has been attributed to several artists such as Hokusai’s daughter Katsushika Ōi (c.1800-c.1866), Hokusai’s talented son-in-law Yanagawa Shigenobu (1787-1832) and one of the most refined surimono * designers in the history of ukiyo-e and pupil of Hokusai, Yashima Gakutei ( 1786-1868) **. Hokusai Himself Personally, I […]
A Humorous Take on The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife
This koban-sized print is a humorous take on designs as that from Shigenobu’s The Dyer’s Saffron (c.1830) and off course Hokusai’s The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife (c.1814). Mirror of Vanity It shows an octopus wearing a headscarf performing oral sex on an ama diver who submits in apparent ecstasy. She is lying with her head […]
Ishikawa Toyonobu and His View on Nanshoku Adventures in the 1700s
Ishikawa Toyonobu (1711-1785) was an eminent ukiyo-e painter, print artist and illustrator. Toyonobu owed as much to Masanobu as he did to his teacher Shigenaga (or Shigenobu-Toyonobu’s relation to Shigenobu is discussed under that artist). In the cold detachment of his female figures there is something of the Kaigetsudo manner. Sexless Following the lead of […]
Tentacle Erotica: Prepare For Some Notoriously Graphic Octopus Images..!
In addition to one of our most read articles about the influence of Hokusai’s iconic The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife on a whole new genre called Tentacle Erotica (shokushu goukan 触手強姦, aka. Tentacle Rape, Tentacle Hentai or Tentacle Porn) we have included more exciting examples below (Beware: some of these images are very graphic!). […]
Magnificent Fold Out Scene by Hokusai’s Son-In-Law
From the mid-1820s some erotic books also included ‘trick pictures’ (shikake-e), a newness that was not limited to extravagant titles. These trick pictures took two forms. The first consisted of small printed paper flaps pasted onto the printed page to represent doors, screens and the like that, when folded back, revealed what lay behind or within. […]