Koharu

Koharu — the courtesan of "Meido no Hikyaku" who shares the love-suicide with Jihei — is depicted in this Yumeji composition, the character who embodied the most tragic dimension of the romantic ideal: the woman loved so absolutely that she must die for it. Koharu is a figure of compassion as much as passion — she agrees to the love-suicide not merely out of desire but out of an inability to live in a world where love of this intensity is impossible. Yumeji's depiction likely captures this quality of sacrificial feeling that made her such a resonant Taisho cultural figure.