Shunga Painting of An Intimate Couple In the Rice Field
29 september 2017 
1 min. read

Shunga Painting of An Intimate Couple In the Rice Field

The following shunga painting is from a set that portray scenes placed in a dreamlike setting that is surrounded by gold-colored clouds. The gifted artist who produced these exclusive paintings was inspired by the early 19th Century masters Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) and Keisai Eisen (1790-1848).

Fig.1.

Harvested Rice

A detailed erotic painting (Fig.1.) that features a farmer and a female colleague in the open air. In the background lay bundles of recently harvested rice drying in the sun.

Couple in Snow

The extraordinary artist Keisai Eisen (1790-1848) produced an identical image (Fig.2.) called ‘Snows of Sano (Sano no yuki)’. That  design is from the series ‘A Light Spring Snow (Haru no usuyuki)’ which was issued in 1822 and features a couple in the snow.

Keisai Eisen - Couple making love in snowy landscape - shunga

Fig.2. ‘Couple in a snowy landscape‘ (c.1822) from the series ‘Light Spring Snow ‘ by Keisai Eisen

Click HERE for more articles on other interesting shunga paintings!

About the author
Marijn is the founder of shungagallery.com. With more than 20 years of experience within the sensual and erotic art of shunga he is an authority in the genre. During this time he served many customers with complementing their art collection.
Darya
By

Darya

on 29 Feb 2020

This design by Eisen is amazing! Ukiyo-e depictions of snowy landscapes are truly magnificent. Well, there are lots of shunga prints with an open-air copulation (thank you for these examples!), but one of the most memorable for me belongs to Kunisada with a https://uploads6.wikiart.org/images/utagawa-kunisada/not_detected_240331.jpg" rel="nofollow">man and a horse in the background.

Marijn
By

Marijn

on 29 Feb 2020

Thanks Darya. A couple making love in a kago (a type of litter used in feudal Japan ). .The two dog puppies are also an amusing detail. Although I doubt if it's a design by Kunisada. The print is als0 trimmed. The upper part is missing which depicts (and refers) to Hiroshige's landscape series.'The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifty-three_Stations_of_the_T%C5%8Dkaid%C5%8D#/media/File:Hiroshige-53-Stations-Hoeido-05-Hodogaya-Tokyo-Met-02.jpg" rel="nofollow">Station 4 (Hodogaya))..!!

Darya
By

Darya

on 29 Feb 2020

Thank you for your answer! Here this piece was mistakenly attributed to Kunisada but with a title '53 Stations of the Tokaido' you mentioned (https://www.wikiart.org/en/utagawa-kunisada/not_detected_240331). I came across this cropped version on Pinterest and was amused by the depicted situation itself as I've never seen shunga that images intercourse in kind of a palanquin. PS As a person who knows a little about Japan culture I love your willingness to explain things!

Marijn
Darya
By

Darya

on 29 Feb 2020

Oh, I missed it, thank you for the link!

Marijn
By

Marijn

on 29 Feb 2020

You\re welcome!

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