Tsukioka Settei's Erotic Paintings

This article focuses on the paintings of the Osaka artist Tsukioka Settei (1726–1786). There exists some research on individual Settei shunga paintings, but no attempt yet to assess his entire known shunga paintings, nor have the works of his pupils been considered. This article examines his extant works in order to outline the trends overall. Further, we examine the paintings in relation to his shunga illustrated books, and analyze how the various motifs were transferred among the paintings and between media. Finally we consider the shunga paintings of his son Tsukioka Sessai (d. 1839) and his pupil Shitomi Kangetsu (1747–1797), and examine how his art was transmitted to the next generation. The conclusions from this analysis are as follows. Firstly, Settei was not very interested in depicting the background of the figures, a technique which stands out in opposition to general trends of the time. Settei tended to use gold leaf to produce an abstract background, and therefore kept alive and enhanced an earlier tradition of shunga handscrolls focused on the figures themselves with little or no background, going against the trend of Edo artists. Secondly, Settei often included images of both Chinese and Japanese in his shunga. Thirdly, there are little direct relations between his shunga books and his paintings. Finally, there is considerable borrowing of motifs among the paintings, and these were also re-used in the paintings of his pupils.