Nozomi Naoi. Yumeji Modern. Designing the Everyday in Twentieth-Century Japan

Washington University Press, 2020. — 820 p. — ISBN 9780295746838The slow, sustained vibrato of a female operatic singer, her performance accompanied by the wistful music of a single violin, fills the exhibition space, which holds paintings, prints, illustrations, books, poetry, essays, and various commercial items by the modern Japanese artist Takehisa Yumeji (1884–1934). The lyrics of the song continue: “Yoimachigusa no yarusenasa / koyoi wa tsuki mo denu sō na” (The despair of the evening primrose / tonight it seems that even the moon will not appear), recounting the quiet longing and sorrow of unrequited love. Yumeji employed the image of the evening primrose as a metaphor for the yearning experienced by a lover who waits until late into the night for a paramourwho never appears. The song “Yoimachigusa” (Evening primrose) was adapted from Yumeji’s poetry, which was published in 1912 in the magazine Shōjo (Girls). The violinist Ōno Tadasuke (1895–1929) set the lyrics to music, first performing the song in 1917. In the following year, Senow Music Publishers issued the musical score as part of its Senoō gakufu (Senow music scores) with Yumeji’s design on the cover, showing a dainty female figure leaning against a tree, her eyes downcast (fig. I.1). Hugely popular in the 1910s and 1920s, “Yoimachigusa” came to be associated with Yumeji’s name.2 Even today exhibition spaces or museums displaying his work often play this iconic piece to conjure up a multisensory experience of the artist’s world.