Erotic Fantasies: Japaneses Ero Guro PDF

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Requirements: 3-4 page min. research paper on work (s) of your choice drawing inspiration from the topics covered in the class. It may be any work – painting, sculpture, tapestries and weaving, architecture, etc. Culturally and historically, you can look at Buddhism, Hinduism, African, Meso-America...

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Claudia Tan LA127 Kimberly Schafer 12/17/2015 Erotic Fantasies: Japaneses Ero Guro Ero guro is a Japanese literary and artistic movement which started around 1930. The word ero guro is a combination of English words which ero means erotic, guro for grotsque and nansensu for nonsense. The art works for ero guro are usually traditional woodblock prints, and people will love those works which are more absurd. Usually themes in these ero guro are erotic asphyxiation, human headed snake, tentacles and legendary creatures. Looking into 18th to 19th century Japanese shunga and ukiyo-e, they show that Japanese pronography often involved violence. Complementary ero guro artists Toshio Saeki and Takato Yamamoto were influenced by shunga a lot. The difference between pure erotic and ero guro is that there are more gloomy sexual fantasies and sickness objects included in it. Gory and violent scenes are not necessary included in ero guro works, but it needs somehow be able to shock the viewers with its eeriness. Around 1930, Japan was facing both economic and social crisis, and rebellious art movement bloomed under the oppression of government. Japanese has a low history of suxual culture obssesion, and following with repression from militarism government, society started to advocate hedonism, sensory stimulation and curiosities in abnormal taboos. For contemporary ero guro artist, the form of yukiyo-e allow them to future express the theme. Toshio Saeki emphasises on sado masochism expressions in his works, and Takato Yamamoto emphasises on

crossing death, sex and lechery all together, but people in his works rarely show pain but only indulging in those abnormal activities. Toshio Saeki once said, “leave other people to draw seemingly beautiful flowers that bloom within a nice, pleasant-looking scenery. I try instead to capture the vivid flowers that sometimes hide and sometimes grow within a shameless, immoral and horrifying dream.” He uses the idea of Shinto, Bushido and Zen a lot in terms of themes or characters in his art. Breaking out his artwork elements, I would say there isn’t a lot of differentiation comparing to traditional woodblock prints. However, the way Toshio Saeki uses his colors and imaginations to create the world he wants to express is tremendously brilliant. Bright red which people generally related to love and passion has taken to a different feeling in Saeki’s paints. Red in his works is absurd, strange and filled with erotic feelings. On the other hand, Takato Yamamoto’s usage of red has less erotic feelings in it but emphasizes on expressing the beauty of pain and somehow attract viewers with the aesthetic polish of flesh. Toshio Saeki’s works also are distinct to Yamamoto’s because of the depth. Saeki has more of a traditional Japanese woodblock print’s trait which colors are more independent to the other and separated into different blocks of colors; therefore, when he is creating a winding road it will be clearly showed. He also leads the end of the road smaller and smaller as more zigzags going on, and this is what Takato Yamamoto doesn’t have in his work. Yamamoto’s works are more similar to yajusha-e which drawing a single character is focused, and added further decorations or story elements in. In order to do so, his works are flat and the sense of depth is not as strong as Saeki’s. These two artist of ero guro, Takato Yamamoto and Toshio Saeki both get their original art influence from traditional woodblock arts, but added in more complementary touches in.

Instead of the style of shunga that includes lots of poems or short scene stories in the negative spaces, they choose to follow the woodblock print’s pure dark color as their background usually. Movement of the works follows how ukiyo-e would normally be, linear movement while its portrait and horizontal while its landscape. All of these are in smaller scale of paints because they are meant to be collected in books. Furthermore, the contents in shunga were widely used in complementary ero guro too. Katsushika Hokusai’s “The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife” is one of the great examples. It is made in 1814, and was also the most famous shunga Hokusai has ever done. This shunga inspired a lot of ero guro artist with the theme of tentacles or snakes, Toshio Saeki is one of them. One of the pictures in Saeki’s book Chimushi, a girl was tied on tree, and just as Hokusai’s Fisherman’s Wife, octopuses are covered on the girl’s genitals which is certainly not weird enough since Saeki has added another man who stares at the girl with an obscene way. Asian societies usually encourage people to inhibit their lust and pursue innocent mind, and these social expectations motive sub cultures like ero guro to bloom under the sun. The form of traditional art allow them to express their strong and rebel concept in a really straightforward way since the flatness of works and vibrant colors are so direct. The theme of ero guro brings out the sexual nature of people and express them in fantasies which evolve the imagination of grotesque sex as how the artists want their viewers to see. For viewers that aren’t familiar with Japanese erotic art, these works might be too avant-garde. However, this is how Japanese erotic artists celebrate their unique art point of view and lead viewers to interpret obscenes and taboos as how they want without getting judge. It is probably somehow as same as how caricature is to

French culture that ero guro is as revolting to general public; however, that is also the reason why it is so easy to represent the criticism to complementary society and government.

Citation Cardenas, Michelle . “Stained Glass Windows Gothic Cathedrals”, http://www.cochise.edu/cfiles/files/26/Gothic-Cathedrals-Michelle-Cardenas-Fall-10.pdf, 2016/05/02 Cathédrale Notre Dame De Paris, “South Rose Window”, http://www.notredamedeparis.fr/South-Rose-Window ,2016/05/02 Irvine Valley College, “Gothic Light: The History of The Stained Glass Program At Chartres“, http://academics.ivc.edu/arts/visual/history/Projects/06-07%20F%20Chartres%20Glass.pdf Lillich, Parsons Meredith. A Redating of the Thirteenth-Century Grisaille Windows of Chartres Cathedral. 1st ed. Vol. 11. Chicago: U of Chicago, 1972. Jstor. International Center of Medieval Art. Web. . Reynolds, Elizabeth. “The Development of Stained Glass in Gothic Cathedrals”, http://scholarspace.jccc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1031&context=honors_journal, 2016/05/02 The Marian Library Research Institude “The Belle Verrière Window of the Cathedral of Chartres”, http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/resources/cathedral1/cathchartres.html ,2016/05/02.

 The Dream of a Fisherman’s Wife by K  atsushika Hokusai, 1814

Eimei nijūhasshūku by Yoshitoshi Tsukioka 1866-1867

Source: Yamamoto Takato http://www.yamamototakato.com/

Source: Toshio Saeki www.TOSHIOSAEKI.com...