A 22-FOOT LONG ‘FART BATTLE’. Late Edo Period (after 1850?). Watercolor on an unmounted paper scroll, approx. 687 cm x 38cm (22.5 ft x 1.25 ft). With over 40 drawings of men engaged in displays of gaseous emissions, on a series of individual sheets of rice-paper pasted together. Edges slightly frayed; one or two old repairs to sheet joins; but generally a well-preserved item. A late 19th century scroll of epic proportions, chronicling this unusual trope in traditional Japanese art: the so-called h?hi gassen ???? (or he-gassen ???). Impossibly graphic in detail, the artwork clearly subverts all kinds of taboos; although the subject matter is entirely non-sexual in nature, one of the competitors casually sports a sizeable erection while preparing himself for these scatological undertakings. The scroll proceeds in a typical narrative style, beginning with the ritual consumption of a certain soup intended to promote gassiness. In the next panels, teams of men direct streams of mustard-yellow gas at each other from astonishing distances; some have shed their clothes entirely to better compete. In the aftermath of these battles, we see the exhausted, depleted survivors dragging themselves along the ground towards a vat of refreshing water. Though there are no clear winners in the scroll, it is evident that each man has exerted himself to the best of his ability, as in any sport. Formal farting matches can be traced back to the medieval period in Japan. The oldest and perhaps most well-known of the genre known as kachi-e ?? (competition or victory art) is held by the Mitsui Memorial Art Museum (Mitsui Kinen Bijyutsukan ???????). There is also a h?hi gassen ???? handscroll in the Suntory Museum of Art dated 1449. The magnificent example of he-gassen at Wasdea University, now digitized, was executed in 1846 as a copy of a late 17th century painting. While the present example appears in comparison to be much more ‘vernacular’ in style, it is of course conceivable that it was also copied after an earlier model.