Charles Grosbois

A disappointment.

My first impression was a good one. The book is large, has thick paper, the images are printed on fine art paper and there are many.

On a closer look however one can see that some of the prints are blurry and after skimming through the book I had the impression that the selection is rather "tame". While the text describes "The dream of the fisherman's wife" in detail, it is nowhere to be seen.

The text itself shows us the long history of eroticism and joy in the japanese culture, literature, religion... It just barely mentions the shunga prints at all! Only after page 130 starts a quick rundown of famous artists and a few of the presented images are commented. I had hoped for a bit more information like the history of those prints, the technique, the clientele, censorship, regional differences...
And on the other hand a lot of works mentioned in the text are not illustrated by photos, images. "Erotic elements in Japanese art" includes surely more than the shunga ukyo-e prints.

All in all the images feel detached from the text. The fact that information to the images is only in the appendix makes this even worse.… (mehr)