Desentrañando "lo pornográfico". La xilografía makura-e

Abstract

Makura-e is a phenomenon derived from and responding to the popular urban culture that developed in Japan at the start of the XVII century and which depicted both genitals and sexually explicit acts with the deliberate intention of provoking sexual stimulation. The woodblock technique used for this work is also known in Japan and the West as shunga, or springtime engraving. Both makura-e and any other subject from the ukiyo-e (or pictures of the floating world) escaped the axiological discourse through which they are now evaluated. Such appraisal naturally focuses on Western postulates regarding “artistic” matters and was closely related to the impact of these prints on leading figures of the artistic renovation that took place in XIX century Europe. Ukiyo-e, and therefore, makura-e, was commercially oriented, dedicated and ready to satisfy the incredible demand for literary and visual printed material by the masses that consumed such works, just as erotic comic books, gossip columns or souvenir postcards are consumed nowadays. However, despite these features, we must should not overlook the undeniable esthetic qualities of such works and the vast expressive resources they utilize, features that distinguish them from other visual creations. Oriented around Western discourses structured and applied to this expressive form, my work will center on the way that the controversy regarding “pornography” and makura-e has evolved and my opinion of it. Nonetheless, I do not intend to add any new definition to the discussion, or include it within the repertoire of categories comprising the current of thought on Japanese culture from the XVII to XIX centuries. I prefer to focus on deciphering this term and on ascertaining its roots and changing meanings. I also wish to trace the history and characteristics of this cultural production, clarifying its connections to other words sometimes used analogously or as antonyms, and above all, to question the rejection, occasional panic and preferred usage of this term when referring to and classifying visual representations known as makura-e (or more commonly shunga).