Mirror of desire - Images of Women in Japanese Prints

The MNAAG unveils a portion of its rich collection of Japanese prints and addresses the contrasting image of women: their place in society, but also their relations amongst themselves or those they have with men. The exhibition is an authentic visual experience, offering a tour through the different types of representations of the female image in the Edo Period (1603-1868). If the very expression "Japanese prints" was synonymous of delicately erotic or even openly pornographic images, the female image as depicted by the greatest names of the Ukiyo-e (including Suzuki Harunobu, Hosoda Eiri, Kitagawa Utamaro and Katsuchika Hokusai) far exceeds such a connotation. For this exhibition the works on exhibit range from courtesans and the evocation of the pleasure district of Edo (Yoshiwara) to 18th and 19th Century shunga (pornographic prints); women as objects of desire, even occasionally violent, as well as their recovered privacy away from men: roaming in a boat or under flowering trees, preparing to bathe or to sleep. On this occasion, several rare ensembles will be shown, including Utamaro's famous triptych "Abalone Fisherwomen" (c. 1797). A rare example of female nudes in Japanese prints save for erotic prints, this triptych represents the ama - literally "sea women" - who for centuries have dived for abalones off Japan's Pacific coast.
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