Japan's Edo art still censored
	Kikugaway Eizan's "High-ranking courtesan [oiran]", c1825­30, part of the National Gallery's exhibition "Beauty and desire: Women of Edo period Japan".
Shelly Simonds The erotic art of Japan's Edo period (1600­1868) is so controversial it is still subject to censorship today. It was impossible to obtain some of the works sought for the Edo exhibition currently showing at the National Gallery because of Japan's tough censorship laws, said Dr Sandra Buckley, visiting fellow in the Art Theory Workshop at the Canberra School of Art and one of the speakers at a conference on Edo which coincided with the opening. But visitors to the exhibition, "Beauty and Desire in Edo Period Japan" should not expect to be shocked by the explicit nature of most of the woodblock prints and paintings on display. Only a few depict anything close to what viewers would consider pornographic. According to Dr Buckley, the real eroticism lies in the poetry surrounding the context of the paintings. "Modern debates draw the eye to the most insignificant element which is the physical," Dr Buckley said. "The real eroticism that excited the Edo viewer was the poetry in the print and the poetic allusion. "A particular contrast of colours, the back drop of a season, the position of the moon, all conjured up a poetic allusion." Sometimes it is another person in the print which creates the eroticism, like another woman entering the scene. "It's the multiplicity of elements in the story that make the eroticism. Too much emphasis on physical body parts erases the extraordinary complexity and beauty of these prints," Dr Buckley said. By the early 18th century, Edo (present day Tokyo) had grown from a small fishing village into the capital of Japan. Obsessed with the ideal of feminine beauty, men from the wealthy merchant class patronised the courtesans and Kabuki theatres of the Yoshiwara brothel district. The history of the Edo period art reveals a complex layering of images of women's lives, Dr Buckley said. The elaborate robes worn by the courtesans of Yoshiwara were reminiscent of fashion during the Heian period, a time of many great women authors. The layering of textiles played an important part in the erotic. "The Heian court was also a world of fans, sleeves, screens, drapes. There is no detail of physical features. The Heian aesthetic of erotic beauty is defined by longing, not exposure," Dr Buckley said. The Shunga genre was a good example of how the naked body was not considered the erotic part of the image. "Many Shunga were censored not for the explicit and exaggerated depiction of sexual organs or the sexual act, but for the content of the text that is so often woven into the imagistic fabric of these prints," said Dr Buckley. "Words always seemed more troubling to the censors than images, and the textual framings of bodies in intercourse often tell a story of forbidden relationships that cross social boundaries."