Japanese ukiyo-e shunga often stage intimate encounters within closed, indoor settings—pleasure quarters or urban dwellings—emphasizing the intense privacy of a four-and-a-half-mat room.

In contrast, Chinese shunga (also called shungū-ga, 春宮画) portray courtly figures against expansive outdoor backdrops—vast courtyards or folding screens adorned with landscape scenes—conveying an open, pastoral atmosphere.

As Chinese literature scholar Miyoko Nakano (中野美代子) observes in The Exquisite Art of Erotica: A Preliminary Study of Chinese Shunga (肉麻図譜―中国春画論序説), these works feel “uninhibited” and idyllic, standing in stark opposition to the enclosed intimacy of Japanese prints.

In this piece, a roll of toilet paper and a banana placed on a lawn serve as metaphoric elements, evoking the freedom and bucolic spirit characteristic of Chinese shunga.