The Joy of Life

Text by Piero Lorenzoni

Published by Crescent Books

Distributed by Crown Publishers, Inc.

New York, New York

1984

Printed in Italy.

The success of 'Kama Sutra' and the amazing sculptures of the Hindu temples the reputation of the great Japanese painters, almost all of whom, and at all periods, have illustrated erotic novels with extraordinary force and vigour, as well as different translations and Chinese novels, have made known to a western public the importance, the ardour and the inventiveness of sexual life in the countries of South-East Asia and the Far-East, over the centuries.

The same western public is for the most part often unaware that prints and pictures that are in many ways similar do exist also in Europe. Christian traditions- to which the westerner owes so much of his philosophy, his morals and his art forms- are obviously responsible for this state of affairs. Until very recent times, secret or undercover collections, the "reserved shelves" of rich collectors, who formed a sort of freemasonry amongst themselves (imitated also by a snobbish elite), concealed unknown treasures. With the relaxation of morals, these treasures were gradually made public and popularized, though admittedly only slowly, and no general presentation has ever been made of Eroticism of European countries for general public.

The present collection, devoted to French Eroticism, will thus be a great revelation. Some great artists of the 18th and 19th centuries can be linked, through the quality of their works, with the great masters of the East, who are so famous. With that element of lightness, grace and wit which has always been characteristic of the French. More modest illustrators have not been backward in disturbing very realistic, and often amusing, engravings, in an undercover fashion.

The eminent specialist, Professor Piero Lorenzoni, from Florence, who knows France extremely well, offers us here a clear and lively panorama, studded with quotations and remarkable in every way, while the majority of the iconography has been gathered together by another distinguished specialist, Professor Gabriele Mandel.

(JS) (C1)