Lament — 愁

Dated 1980, "Lament" (愁) belongs to Takasawa's later career and introduces an explicitly mournful emotional register. The character 愁 carries connotations of grief, melancholy, and autumnal longing — a feeling akin to mono no aware, the bittersweet awareness of transience that runs through Japanese aesthetics. A female figure in this state of feeling would have been depicted with characteristic restraint: grief made visible in the quality of stillness rather than in overt expression.