Itoh Seiu: ”Die Bilder über die Strafe und abnormer Geschlechtstrieb” (Pictures of punishment and abnormal sexual drive)
Japanese title: 世界の刑罰・性犯・変態の研究
The book contains 296 numbered images, divided in different sections. Each section has a commentary text.
Original edition 1930, this is a reprint from 1977.
This thick, hardbound volume comes in a silver-printed slipcase. It contains what in my perception is a quite heterogeneous collection of images of punishment, torture and execution, from different epochs and geographical locations. Thus, about half of the material is European (for example the execution of Damiens, unforgettable for anyone who has read the first pages of Foucault’s ”Discipline and Punish”). Most relevant for this blog, the book contains many historical images of hojojutsu, and the last section has several images by Itoh Seiu – including some photographs of tying in a snowy landscape. The section ends with a commentary-text by Itoh Seiu on kinbaku and seme/cruelty in theatre and in crime.