Hokusai to Araki; The Global Reception to Explicit Japanese Art

Alyssa Delahan Meade
Trinity College Dublin
Department of History of Art and Architecture
2020
BA

Subject: Photography/Prints
Country: Japan
Period: 19th, 20th & 21st centuries

10,000 words

This dissertation explores the relationship between the theme of eroticism in the 19th century prints of Hoksusi and the 20th century photographs of Araki. The purpose of this research is to explore the history of erotic art which has contributed to the development of explicit and shocking imagery that has come to define contemporary Japanese art from a western perspective. Further the intention is to explore the ways in which this western impression is somewhat reductive. There is a desire to sensationalise that which is unfamiliar and strange to us, leading to a skewed view of Japanese art and culture, further enforcing the role of western viewer as a scandalised voyeur. Rather than this sensational view of erotic art, there ought to be a greater acceptance of erotic art as reflective of a natural practice and universal experience.

Irish Georgian Society

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Hokusai to Araki; The Global Reception to Explicit Japanese Art