The Erotic Sentiment: In the Paintings of China and Japan

Rating:
Summary: A GOOD REFERENCE BOOK
Review: Although the book is small, it covers much material on the subject and the color reproductions are good for an inexpensive book. The explanations of the reproductions shown are very interesting and very helpful in better understanding the subject matter - the poetry is superb - a valuable reference work for the price.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: The authors have chosen a number of very enjoyable pictures. They show many different ways to approach the physcial act of love, both in body and in spirit. That much of the book was easy to enjoy.

The range of pictures is somewhat limited, though. The majority are Chinese. It's not that I object to the Chinese paintings or style, but that the authors under-represent the Japanese tradition. Shunga print offers a vast amount of material, but not much appears here and maybe not the most distinguished examples.

The commentary on each picture was vapid beyond belief. It generally emphasized that facts that were obvious on casual inspection, but added the traditional name of the position shown. It would have been so easy to add descriptions of real interest: the attitudes behind threesomes or other unusual presentation, the relationships of positions to Taoist alchemy, the social meaning of a woman unclad below the waist but covered across the chest, or more. I'm quite discouraged when I think about all the opportunities lost.

Other books offer better collections and better commentary. The pictures are ordinary, of their kind, but reproduced well enough. There really isn't a lot that makes this book stand out, though.