MIRROR OF DESIRE - Images of women in Japanese prints

From July 6 to 10 October 2016 at the National Museum of Asian Arts-GUIMET.

Through a visual walk in its very rich collection of prints, the MNAAG approaches the contrasting image of women in Japanese prints.
If the very term “Japanese print” was synonymous with delicately erotic or even crudely pornographic images, we cannot reduce the feminine image as portrayed by the biggest names in ukiyo-e (including Suzuki Harunobu, Hosoda Eiri, Kitagawa Utamaro and Katsuchika Hokusai).
On the occasion of this exhibition, the spectrum of works presented will therefore range from courtesans and the evocation of the pleasure district of Edo (Yoshiwara) to shunga (pornographic prints) of the 18th and 19th centuries, of women who have become objects of a desire that is sometimes violent, even their intimacy found far from men: strolling in a boat or under flowering trees, getting ready for bath or sleep.
Rare sets will be shown on this occasion, including the famous triptych “The fishermen of abalones” by Utamaro (circa 1797).