For what is worth ...
When I saw that British Museum in London was displaying shunga I wandered «why not in summer!» because usually I’m in London in that period or I can manage to be (since I’m living in a different country). So I tried to convince my hubby to spend a week-end or few days in London -no kids attached - to go to British Museum, enjoy our time (and maybe see Sherlock on tv on January 1st?).
He said he wasn’t too sure about it, that he preferred to spend Christmas holiday home relaxing and for just the weekend he couldn’t for sure because of work. Since I’m trying to deal for a while with the fact that, although I’m a working mother , I steel have lots of interests and I’m the one who have to take care of work, kids, housekeeping (like every other woman on the planet), and in the last months looking for a new house in the free time I don’t have, I felt like I deserved at least a few adult time not caring for anything or anyone and decided to go to London alone.
Said that I’d like to share what I saw because I found the show very interesting and well displayed. Shunga are ….. they were arranged period starting from the ancient one. Every picture was described in detail and at the begin of every section there was a general description about artists and historical contest. I loved every piece and actually I think that somehow they are modern manga grandparents.
There are lots of elements in common between the two: the graphic part, the irony used in describing the scene, the technique used and the embellishment . I found particularly interesting the style development: starting from the draw in itself, during the time, more particular were added to the scene, than poem or dialogs were written close to the characters arriving to confine the words in clouds on top of the page or at the angles. There were books that used shunga as illustrations for novels or in (what I found something like doujinshi) ordinary story converted in erotic story with few change in the original draw. My favourite image was the one of a woman possessed by an octopus… I’ve found it very erotic.
Unfortunately it was forbidden to take picture but I found a postcard in the gift shop representing one of the MxM shunga displayed.
I just stayed away two days but the visit was worthwhile and in the evening I managed to go to the O2 Academy in Brixton to see the Placebo concert !!!
So now my kids have a very content mum and my husband (who kindly made my reservations to show me his understanding) have a less stressed wife to deal with♥
The only problem is that I’m afraid I’ve opened a Pandora’s vase … I have the feeling this kind of getaway is going to happen again in the future ^o^