江户人的气质，最烦听大道理。在他们看来，发自内心的微笑中，蕴含着粉碎一切道理、说教的神力。
如果按题材，把浮世绘分为美人画、风景画、戏剧画等部类的话，那么其中最可观的一支非春画莫属。作为浮世绘中的春宫，春画有枕绘、胜绘、濡绘、笑绘、秘画、秘戏画、偃息图、艳画、艳本等形形色色的别称，以枕绘最为通俗（本文权且以此作为浮世绘春画的通称）。一代绘师喜多川歌麿（Utamaro Kitagawa，1753~1806年）一生创作了大量枕绘，被看成此类绘画中的“绝品”，其中最有名的系列作品，名为《歌枕》，意为“歌麿版枕绘”。
浮世绘中到底有多少春画？由于年代久远，缺乏精准的统计数据，几不可考，一说是“近半数”。但根据日本学者的研究，江户时代出版的枕绘版画（即公开发行的所谓“公刊作品”）应该不下于两千种（套）。而春画多为由十二帧图构成的组物画，一些艳本又包含若干种春画，依此推测，春画的绝对数量似应为上述数字的十数倍。总之，相当可观。
枕绘分肉笔画和版画两种。前者为绘师的手绘本，后者为木版印刷、批量生产的
版画。前者之中，尽管也不无出自一流绘师的精品，但多系达官显贵、华族武士专门定制的高价珍品，数量极其有限，属稀世奇珍。绝大多数手绘本，其实是无名的三四流绘师的摹写本，虽然也号称“肉笔”，但其艺术价值反而远不如那些出自知名绘师的版画作品。所以，正如在常识意义上，说到浮世绘多指版画作品一样，说到枕绘，一般亦指后者。
日本美术界有个说法，“不看枕绘，浮世绘便无从谈起”——此话道出了春画在浮世绘中的地位。枕绘，顾名思义，是赤裸裸描绘男女性行为的人物画。多少懂点绘画常识的人知道，与静物和风景相比，画人物难。而人物画中的春宫画，对技术，尤其是素描功力的要求之高，可谓难上加难。浮世绘，作为描绘江户时代市井生活的艺术文本，题材包罗万象，庶几可以说，“浮世”的所有物事，都成了其选题，而以描绘游女花魁的闺阁秘事为能事的枕绘则堪称其艺术的极致。
枕绘的起源
日本学界一般认为，随着中国医书一起登陆日本的偃息图是枕绘的始祖。在现存文献中，“偃侧图”（同偃息图）一词最早出现于大宝元年（公元701年，中国长安元年）颁布的《大宝律令》中的“医疾令”，大约是作为医用书参考之用的性交体位解说图。在中国传统医学方术中，房中术是长生不老术的正儿八经的研究对象，所以这类解说体位的附图是不可或缺的。不成想，最初舶来的科学知识，在东洋这个偏安一隅的儒学“离岛”、乐感文化的沃土上，很快便脱离了其本来的实用目的，作为春画而独行、发展、做大。
后来成为浮世绘春画的看家本领的、对男女性器夸张的变形描绘，至少可以追溯到平安时代，枕绘的基本形态也在同一时期确立。从室町末期到江户时代初期，是一个肉笔风俗画的流行时代，作为其子类的肉笔枕绘，也迎来了全盛期。但是，尽管肉笔枕绘文化已相当发达，但毕竟只是面向公卿、武家等上流贵族和富裕町人阶层的专有物，尚未达到庶民百姓“喜闻乐见”的程度。
无论任何国家，文化艺术逢乱世必变得呆滞僵硬，而在和平时期，则会呈现软化、市民化、大众化的转型，此乃历史规律使然。史学界最新的研究成果表明，传统西方中心论的历史观把江户时代的日本看成是落后国家是错误的。日本文明学者梅棹忠夫（Tadao Umesao）认为，日本和英国都具有偏离大陆的岛国的共同特征，前者的发展之所以落后于后者，原因在于前者实行过莫名其妙的锁国政策。否则，日英两国甚至有可能同时经历工业革命。此论正确与否另当别论，但江户时代作为长达270年的太平盛世，工商业高度繁荣，包括以木版印刷为核心技术的近代出版业的出现，客观上为枕绘这种“好色文化”的成熟、中兴提供了条件。
枕绘虽源自中国，但青出于蓝而胜于蓝。日本浮世绘学者对中国的春宫抱有一种普遍的“偏见”，认为举凡世界诸国的春宫文化，数中国最无趣。因为他们觉得东邻自偃息图以降，直至战前的春画，基本上是缠足美人弱不禁风的忸怩样态，千人一面，毫无发展。尽管也有闺房秘事的风俗描写和对性器、体位的刻画，但细小可怜的男根和永远像少女般的女阴无法唤起观者的“情热”，乃春宫的失败。他们甚至怀疑，一个房中术如此发达，很早便创造了偃息图的国度，其春宫画师们究竟是否受过基础的女阴写生训练。
日人对中国春宫“艺术成就”的藏否之成立与否，是另外的问题，但它却从不同的侧面向我们揭示了东洋春画之所以“成功”的秘密：注重细节描绘，以夸张的尺码强调性器的存在。西方古典绘画是基于解剖学基础之上的写实主义，像摄影一样，并不夸张，甚至不无相反的倾向。譬如，我们看古希腊的雕塑，肌肉呈块状隆起的男人体，男根却像少年似的不成比例，有时会觉得不可思议。对西方社会来说，锁国时代的岛国本来就有种神秘感，经过如此这般的艺术夸张，“东洋武士”的形象似乎与某种暧昧的想像链接到了一起。据说，曾有看过浮世枕绘的西洋妇人，不远万里，飘洋过海到东瀛，不为别的，就想看一看东洋男子到底是否真如传说中的“伟岸”。
枕绘的“微言大义”
提起浮世绘春画，基于某种意识形态化的传统思维，一般容易被看成男权社会中所谓男性专用的“道具”——这基本上是一种对东洋社会一厢情愿的想像。事实上，最新的研究表明，枕绘在江户时代之普及程度，已跨越了男女老幼的区分，几乎受到所有人的喜爱和追捧，具有超越性权力、性政治及性本身之上的广泛意义。
在江户时代，春画亦称“笑绘”，称带春画插图的书为“笑本”。何以如此呢？在大量的江户枕绘中，确实不乏对引人发笑的情景和滑稽趣向的描绘，但无论如何，相当多的作品，只是单纯描绘了男女的性交欢而已。因此，江户人称“笑绘”，并不仅仅专指那类埋有逗乐“包袱”的枕绘，更多时候，是觉得与性挂钩的世相本身很可笑。
然而，“可笑”并非冷笑，也绝不含轻蔑的意味，而是给内心以安慰，解开心结的会心一笑。这令人想起民间神话“天钿女命”的故事：故意露出胸乳和女阴，引诱天照大神发笑，“并不用力”，难题便告破解。某种共通的构造，与“笑绘”如出一辙：性（女阴）——笑——心结顿开。
江户人的气质，最烦听大道理。在他们看来，发自内心的微笑中，蕴含着粉碎一切道理、说教的神力。也许，这就是枕绘之为“笑绘”的“道理”？
江户时代的书籍里，常见到描写夫妇或独身男女以春画作催情道具的场面，就其动机和功用而言，有些类似现代人看A片。但枕绘毕竟只是催情的道具，充其量是“佐料”，不能用作做爱指南。因为枕绘为了描绘男女性行为的“活色生香”，常不惜刻意夸张性器官，对体位加以特写，从而牺牲了人体生理上的自然性、合理性。所以若以枕绘为蓝本，“如法炮制”的话，一般不会有好果子吃。对如此邯郸学步者的奚落不仅充实了枕绘的题材，更是“笑绘”爱用的“切口”。当时，一首被称为川柳（一种格式工整的滑稽俳句，类似汉语的打油诗）的杂俳这样写道：
傻夫妇模仿枕绘扭伤腕子
勉强效法伤筋动骨不得了
另一首说年轻人手捧西川画（指京都名绘师西川祐信所画的枕绘）实行自慰，但因过于沉湎而导致肾虚的“川柳”则写道：
小伙计照西川画画瓢
伤了身子笑本被没收
对枕绘的审美并非男性的专有物，也是江户女性的藏爱。一首川柳有道是：
书店女掌柜对某样东西恍然气浮
弄湿了绘本却来不及晾干怪可怜
大名家嫁女，会让女儿把十二帧图缀成的“笑本”作为嫁妆带走。在一些华族家中，此类秘藏内容之丰富，鲜有“撞车”者。
这些春画，与其说是作为嫁入夫家的女儿婚姻生活的指南，不如说是一种祈祷“夫妇和合”、阴阳调和的祝仪物——一种类似护身符似的东西。因为在传统东洋人的朴素信仰中，男女好和乃世间万物之根本。
提起浮世春画，一般人会想当然地以为其所描画的尽是花街柳巷的风尘游女、艺伎与相好的买春客之间所交易的“好事”。可细加考察便会发现，表现这种关系的作品其实相当有限，绝大多数，是对俗世普通男女性风俗的描绘。
虽然描画的净是庶民的性风俗，但绝非单调、枯燥。姑且不论男女的组合，须眉“断背”组合也屡见不鲜；虽为数较少，巾帼“断袖”组合也偶尔登场；除此之外，更有几男一女或几女一男的“非对称”组合。从年龄上，成人熟女自不在话下，少男少女、老汉老太轮番登场，当然也不乏打破年龄秩序的“跨世代”组合。有男性的勾引，也有女性的诱惑；有夫妻间和气蔼蔼的交合，也有男女某一方的出轨偷欢；有下女对亭主夫妇房事的偷窥，也有男仆偷吃女主人的“豆腐”；有孤女的自慰，也有三人行，甚至“多人行”的飨宴……至于性交的体位和性技，亦可谓形形色色，应有尽有。一句话：浮世春画的世界，无异于人间性爱的曼陀罗图。
历代大名都有定制甲胄，并在铠甲柜中放置一卷春画的习惯。武士把甲胄和春画一起保管的习惯相当悠久，可追溯到江户时代以前，在川柳中也曾留下过记载。对如是风习，日本民间有各种解释，其中比较有说服力的，是祈“武运长久”说。至明治时期，这种习惯仍然存在：日俄战争时期，作为一项国策，大量再版印制江户时代的春画，并分发到奔赴沙场的士兵手中。后来，虽然作为国策的再版、发行告终，但直到二战时，在中国战场作战的士兵中，还不乏偷偷往怀里藏一帧枕绘或色情写真的信者。
家藏一帧枕绘，可避火事；怀揣一帧上战场，可挡枪眼。从武运长久，到防灾驱魔，实际上，春画起到了护身符的作用。
浮世春画，既以俗世男女的性风俗为表现对象，自然会为百姓所喜闻乐见。但事实上，一些江户时代一流的大知识分子也是其消费者和铁杆发烧友。
据肥前平户藩藩主松浦静山（Seizan Matsura，1760~1841年）所著《甲子夜话》中记载：江户时期最权威的儒学者、古文辞学派始祖荻生徂徕（Sorai Ogyu，1666~1728年）受人之请为一幅春画题款。徂徕挥毫题写的，是《老子》中开宗明义的那句著名的偈语：“玄之又玄，众妙之门。”如果是一幅山水的话，对徂徕的题款大可从正面诠释其深意。但作为春画的题款，面对生动养眼的局部特写，徂徕到底想说什么，便只有望“文”生义了。枕绘的艺术魅力
枕绘的最大特点，是对男女性器官的变形、夸张，目的是为了更加生动地表现性行为，有点像A片中的局部特写镜头。但A片的特写，并无尺码的夸张，而枕绘则不然，对尺码的变形几乎是一项“基本功”。
但是，尽管有夸张、变形，枕绘对男女性器“形”的掌握极其精准、传神，可谓“万变不离其宗”，难怪日本学者质疑中国的春宫画师们是否受过女阴写生的基础训练。有证据表明，江户时代浮世春画绘师们不仅有长期临摹古本肉笔枕绘的扎实的素描基础，而且多有真人模特写生的“实战”经验。这种功力充分反映到画面的细节中：在男女行为的高潮时刻，双方目光的对视，手足（特别是指尖、趾尖）用力的火候及“表情”，无不体现着绘师“非一日之寒”的修炼。
变形，既要实现局部夸张的审美目的，又要弥补解剖学上不自然的感觉，是极见功夫、难乎其难的创造。以在现实中难以想像的姿势肢体交错、相拥相抱的男女，既不拘泥于解剖学上的“正确”位置关系，又不至使观者造成视觉上的比例失调、画面失衡感，通过巧妙的变形，在强调局部效果的同时，反而恰到好处地实现了向“真实”（Reality）的转换。即使交股叠臀的男女，在整体构图上稍嫌勉强，却在被切分的画面中，反而保持了精确的平衡，使观者获得一种像眺望银幕似的错觉。在这种为绘师的夸张、变形所刻意营造的“真实”的错觉中，观者的目光被引诱到画面所强调的所有细节之中。穿过着男女主人公两两对视的灼热视线，仿佛听见了男人急粗的呼吸和女人如牛的娇喘。
这，便是江户枕绘所托给我们的浮世春梦。
----------Introduction in English----------
If, according to the subject matter, the Ukiyo painting is divided into beauty painting, landscape painting, drama painting and other categories, then the most impressive one is spring painting. As the spring palace in Ukiyo painting, spring painting has various nicknames, such as pillow painting, winning painting, immersion painting, laughing painting, secret painting, secret opera painting, Yan Xitu, gorgeous painting, Yanben, and so on. Pillow painting is the most popular one (this right is also the general name of Ukiyo spring painting). Utamaro Kitagawa (1753-1806), a generation of painters, has created a large number of pillow paintings throughout his life, which are regarded as the "best" of such paintings. The most famous series of works, called "Song Pillow", means "Song Pillow Painting".
How many spring paintings are there in Ukiyo paintings? Because of the long history and lack of accurate statistical data, it is almost impossible to verify. One is "nearly half". However, according to the research of Japanese scholars, pillow prints published in Edo era (i.e. publicly issued so-called "publications") should be no less than 2,000 kinds. Spring paintings are mostly composed of twelve frames, and some gorgeous books contain several kinds of spring paintings. Based on this, it is inferred that the absolute number of spring paintings should be more than ten times the number mentioned above. In short, it's quite impressive.
Pillow painting can be divided into meat brush painting and printmaking. The former is a painter's hand-painted book, the latter is woodblock printing, mass production of prints. Among the former, although not without the fine works of the first-class painters, most of them are high-priced treasures specially customized by high-ranking officials and Chinese warriors, and the quantity is extremely limited, which is rare and rare. The vast majority of hand-painted books are actually copies of unknown third-and fourth-rate painters. Although they are also known as "gravy pens", their artistic value is far inferior to those of well-known painters. So, just as in the sense of common sense, when it comes to Ukiyo paintings, it refers to prints, when it comes to pillow paintings, it also refers to the latter.
There is a saying in Japanese art circle that "without pillow painting, Ukiyoshi painting can not be talked about" - this saying tells us the position of spring painting in Ukiyoshi painting. Pillow painting, as its name implies, is a figure painting that depicts the sexual behavior of men and women naked. How many people who know something about painting know that it is difficult to draw characters compared with still life and scenery. The Spring Palace paintings in figure paintings have a high demand for techniques, especially sketching skills, which can be said to be more difficult. Ukiyo painting, as an artistic text describing the life of the city in the Edo era, has a wide range of subjects. It can be said that everything in Ukiyo has become its topic of choice, while pillow painting, which takes describing the secrets of the boudoir of the female flower quet as its ability, can be regarded as the ultimate of its art.
Origin of Pillow Painting
Japanese academics generally believe that with the Chinese medical books landing in Japan together, the Nishitu map is the ancestor of pillow painting. In the existing literature, "Yan Side Map" (Tong Yan Xiu Tu) first appeared in the "Medical Illness Order" of "Da Bao Law" promulgated in the first year of Da Bao (701 A.D., the first year of Chang'an, China), which is about a sexual position interpretation map for reference in medical books. In traditional Chinese medicine, atrial surgery is the research object of the eight meridians of the orthodox son of immortality, so this kind of figure to explain posture is indispensable. Unexpectedly, the original imported scientific knowledge, on the island of Confucianism and the fertile land of music culture in the peaceful corner of the East China Sea, soon broke away from its original practical purpose and went on its own, developed and expanded as a spring painting.
Later, it became the watcher's skill of Ukiyo Spring Painting, and the exaggerated depiction of male and female artifacts can be traced back at least to the Ping'an era. The basic form of pillow painting was also established in the same period. From the end of Shiding to the early Edo period, it was a popular era of meat-pen custom painting. As a sub-category of meat-pen pillow painting, it also ushered in its heyday. However, although the meat pen pillow painting culture has been quite developed, but after all, it is only for the noble and wealthy people, such as Gongqing, Wujia, and so on. It has not yet reached the level of common people "like to hear and see".
Regardless of any country, culture and art will become dull and rigid in times of chaos, while in peacetime, it will show the transformation of softening, citizenization and popularization, which is the result of historical law. The latest research results in the field of history show that it is wrong for the traditional Western-centered view of history to regard Japan in the Edo era as a backward country. Tadao Umesao, a Japanese civilized scholar, believes that both Japan and Britain share the common characteristics of island countries deviating from the mainland. The reason why the former lags behind the latter is that the former has adopted an inexplicable policy of lock-up. Otherwise, Japan and Britain may even experience industrial revolution at the same time. Whether this theory is correct or not is another matter. However, as a peaceful and prosperous period of 270 years, the Edo era witnessed a high degree of prosperity in industry and commerce, including the emergence of modern publishing industry with woodblock printing as its core technology, which objectively provided conditions for the maturity and revival of pillow painting as a "lustful culture".
Although the pillow painting originated in China, the blue is better than the blue. Japanese Ukiyoshi painters hold a prejudice against the Spring Palace in China. They think that the Spring Palace culture of all countries in the world is the most boring in China. Because they think that the spring paintings of the East Neighbor from the beginning to the end of the war were essentially the coy and coy of the feet-bound beauty, with thousands of people on one side and no development at all. Although there are also custom descriptions of boudoir secrets and descriptions of sexual organs and postures, the failure of the Spring Palace is that the tiny and poor male roots and the female genitals, which are always like girls, can not arouse the viewer's "passion". They even doubted whether the Spring Palace painters had received basic training in female sketching in a country where Fang Zhongshu was so developed that they had created the Nishitu at an early age.
Whether or not Japanese people hold the "artistic achievements" of the Chinese Spring Palace is another question, but it reveals to us from different aspects the secret of the "success" of the Eastern Spring Painting: paying attention to detail description, emphasizing the existence of sex organs with exaggerated sizes. Western classical painting is based on realism on the basis of anatomy. Like photography, it is not exaggerated, or even has the opposite tendency. For example, when we look at ancient Greek sculptures, the muscles of men are bulky, but the male roots are out of proportion like teenagers. Sometimes it is incredible. For the western society, the island country in the period of the lock-up had a sense of mystery. After such artistic exaggeration, the image of the "Eastern Warrior" seems to be linked with some ambiguous imagination. It is said that there have been Western women who have seen Ukiyo pillow paintings. They have traveled thousands of miles across the sea to Dongying. For no other reason, they want to see whether the men of Dongyang are really like the legendary "Weishore".
Pillow Painting of "Weiyan Dayi"
When it comes to Ukiyo Spring Painting, based on some traditional ideological thinking, it is easy to be regarded as the so-called "props" for men in the patriarchal society, which is basically a wishful imagination of the Eastern society. In fact, the latest research shows that the popularity of pillow painting in the Edo era has transcended the distinction between men and women, the old and the young, and is loved and sought after by almost all people. It has a broad significance beyond sexual power, sexual politics and sex itself.
In the Edo era, spring paintings were also called "laughing paintings", and books with illustrations of spring paintings were called "laughing books". Why? In a large number of Edo pillow paintings, it is true that there are many descriptions of laughing scenes and funny directions, but in any case, quite a number of works simply depict sexual intercourse between men and women. Therefore, the Edo people called "laughing painting", not only refers to those pillow paintings buried with amusing "burden", more often, they feel that the world itself linked to sex is ridiculous.
However, "ridiculous" is not a sneer, nor does it mean contempt, but a heartfelt smile to comfort the heart and relieve the happy knot. This reminds us of the story of the folk myth "Tianzhao Female Destiny": deliberately revealing breasts and females, seducing Tianzhao God to laugh, "without exertion", the problem will be solved. Some common structure is the same as "laughter painting": sex (vulva) - laughter - heart knot.
Edo people's temperament is most annoying to listen to the truth. In their view, a smile from the heart contains the divine power to crush all truth and preach. Perhaps this is what pillow painting is called "laughing painting"?
In Edo era books, it is common to see scenes depicting couples or single men and women using spring paintings as estrus props. As far as their motives and functions are concerned, some of them are similar to modern people watching A films. But after all, pillow painting is only a prop to urge love, at best it is "condiment" and can not be used as a guide to sex. Because in order to depict the sexual behavior of men and women, "vivid and fragrant", pillow painting often deliberately exaggerates the sexual organs and features the posture, thus sacrificing the physical naturalness and rationality of the human body. Therefore, if the pillow painting is used as the blueprint and "processed like this", there will be no good fruit to eat. The ridicule of such pedestrians in Handan not only enriches the subject matter of pillow painting, but also is the "incision" favored by "laugh painting". At that time, a miscellaneous haiku called Chuanliu (a well-formed comic haiku, similar to Chinese oil poems) wrote as follows:
Stupid couples imitate pillow painting to sprain wrists
Reluctant treatment can't help breaking bones and muscles
Another says that young people masturbate by holding pictures of Nishikawa in their hands (referring to pillow paintings painted by Yoshi Nishikawa, a famous painter in Kyoto). However, the "Sichuan Liu" who suffers from kidney deficiency due to excessive indulgence writes:
The young man drew the ladle according to Xichuan.
Injured laughing Book confiscated
The aesthetics of pillow painting is not exclusive to men, but also the Tibetan love of Edo women. A Sichuan willow has a way of saying:
The bookstore woman's cabinet suddenly blew up at something.
Wet the picture book, but it's too late to dry.
A married daughter of a famous family will let her daughter take away the "laughing book" decorated with twelve pictures as her dowry. In some Chinese families, there are few "car crashers" because of the rich contents of such secrets.
These spring paintings are not so much a guide to the marriage life of the daughter married to her husband's family as a prayer for "couple harmony" and the harmony of yin and Yang - something similar to amulet. Because in the traditional simple belief of the Orientals, harmony between men and women is the foundation of all things in the world.
When it comes to Ukiyoshi Spring Painting, people would take it for granted that it depicts all the "good things" that are traded between the travelling girls, geishas and good buyers of spring paintings in Huajie and Liuxiang. A close examination will reveal that the works expressing this relationship are quite limited. Most of them are descriptions of the common customs of men and women.
Although the description is purely ordinary people's sexual customs, but by no means monotonous and boring. Regardless of the combination of men and women, the "broken back" combination of the eyebrow is also common; although a small number, the "broken sleeve" combination of the scarf also occasionally appeared; in addition, there are several "asymmetric" combinations of men, women and men. From the age point of view, adult and mature women are indifferent, young boys and girls, old men and old women take turns on the stage, of course, there is no lack of "cross-generational" combination to break the age order. There are men's seduction and women's seduction; there are amiable intercourse between husband and wife, there are some men and women's derailment and delight; there are women peeping at the household affairs of the pavilion owners and couples, there are men's servants stealing the hostess's "tofu"; there are solitary women's masturbation, there are three people's walks, and even "multi-person walks" feast... As for the position and skill of sexual intercourse, it can be said that there are all kinds of things. Bottom line: The world of Ukiyo Spring Painting is like the Mandalas of human sexual love.
All the great names of the past dynasties have custom-made armor and have the habit of placing a volume of spring paintings in the armor cabinet. Warriors have a long tradition of keeping armour and spring paintings together, which can be traced back to the Edo era and recorded in Sichuan and Liuzhong. There are various explanations for such customs among Japanese people, among which the more convincing one is to pray for "long-term military campaign". In the Meiji period, this habit still existed: during the war between Japan and Russia, as a national policy, a large number of reprints of spring paintings of the Edo era were printed and distributed to soldiers who went to the sands. Later, although the reissue and publication of the national policy ended, until World War II, there were still many soldiers who secretly hid a pillow painting or pornographic portrait in their arms.
A frame of pillow painting can avoid fire, and a frame of pillow painting can block the gun's eye when going to battlefield. From the long-term military campaign to disaster prevention and exorcism, in fact, spring paintings play the role of amulet.
Ukiyoshi Spring Painting, which takes the secular sexual customs of men and women as its object of expression, will naturally be welcomed by the people. But in fact, some of the top intellectuals of the Edo era are also consumers and hardcore enthusiasts.
According to Seizan Matsura (1760-1841), the master of Pinghu vassal in Feiqian, the most authoritative Confucian scholar in the Edo period and the ancestor of the school of ancient Chinese diction, Sorai Ogyu (1666-1728), was invited to inscribe a spring painting. Written with a gentle gesture is the famous Parody in Lao Tzu, which opens with a clear meaning: "Xuanzhi is also Xuanzhi, the door of many wonderful things." If it's a landscape, its profound meaning can be interpreted from a positive perspective. But as the theme of spring painting, facing the vivid and eye-catching local features, we can only look at the "literary" to express what we want to say.
The Artistic Charm of Pillow Painting
The biggest feature of pillow painting is the distortion and exaggeration of male and female sexual organs, in order to more vividly express sexual behavior, a bit like the local close-up shot in A film. However, the close-up of A film does not exaggerate the size, while pillow drawing is not. The deformation of the size is almost a "basic skill".
However, despite exaggeration and distortion, pillow painting is extremely accurate and vivid in mastering the "shape" of male and female implements. It is no wonder that Japanese scholars have questioned whether Chinese Spring Palace painters have received basic training in female genital sketch. Evidence shows that Ukiyo Spring Painters in the Edo era not only have a solid sketch base for long-term copying of ancient brush pillow paintings, but also have "real-life" experience in model sketches. This skill is fully reflected in the details of the picture: at the climax of men's and women's behavior, the gaze between the eyes of both sides, the intense heat of the hands and feet (especially fingertips and toes) and the "expression" all reflect the painter's "non-day cold" practice.
Deformation, which not only realizes the aesthetic purpose of local exaggeration, but also compensates for the unnatural feeling in anatomy, is an extremely hard and difficult creation. Men and women in staggered and embracing positions that are difficult to imagine in reality are neither confined to the "correct" position relationship in anatomy, nor cause visual imbalance and picture imbalance. Through ingenious deformation, while emphasizing the local effect, they have realized the "truth" appropriately. Conversion of Reality. Even though men and women who overlap their hips are reluctant in the overall composition, they maintain a precise balance in the segmented picture, giving the viewer an illusion like looking at the screen. In this illusion of "reality" deliberately created by the artist's exaggeration and distortion, the viewer's eyes are lured into all the details emphasized in the picture. Through the two pairs of eyes of the hero and heroine, the burning sight seemed to hear the man's sharp breathing and the woman's cowlike panting.
This is the Ukiyo Spring Dream entrusted to us by Edo Pillow Painting.