Fukuoka Art Museum is located at Oshori park witih very beautiful scenery. The museum has several thematic exhibits from time to time, at September 2015 thery already announce the topics for 2016. Along with paintings there also are ceramics, needlework,... Especially in this museum they also sell prints of famous authors' works. But perhaps the Chunhua room is getting most of the attention.
After i just finished watching the ancient paintings in the 2nd floor of the main building and came out, a museum staff invited me into a room with the hanging curtains that have a (春) character on it. This is a gallery for visitors over eighteen only.
The first time i look at pictures displayed here i was starled. A world of paintings that describe sex scenes very specifically, with all kinds of styles, positions, even more than sex scenes that sometimes pop out on Internet. There are scenes with one male two females, two males twho females and even more so, the gay sex scenes and the most extreme is the picture of an octopus having sex with a woman.
Taking picture is not allowed in the gallery, but as soon as you walk out, typing Shunga (spring picture) in search engine will results in many illustrations. Shunga is a kind of wood carving picture in Japan, use the theme of heterosexual relations as inspiration back from 17th century. But learning about this art form you can see that it existed in China before that thousands years and developed quite prevalently around 10th century in large cities like Suzhou, Hangzhou, Guangzhou. Because it's the entertainment for kings and principalities, it's named Spring palace painting, the very specific sex scenes were not only drawn on paper but also printed on porcelain dishes, teapots, vases...
Shunga portrays quite detailedly sensitive parts of male and female body, the pleasure facial expression and all kind of making love positions. Artist Hokusai's painting 'Dream of fisherman's wife' describes the image of a woman being eated out by an octopus seemed totally alien to the mainstream of tradional art. However, this is one of the most famous paintings of Hokusai, many researchers consider him the greatest woodblock artist of all time in Japan.
Shunga paintings are given as 'wedding gift' to bride to bring to her husband's home, and as a luck charm to samurais before the battle.
Although causing many controvesies, ancient sunga paintings are still displayed in major museums and Japanese shunga paintings are brought to British Museum in London and even to US.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDelete