Lady with Blue Kimono

A woman in a blue kimono — the cool color unusual in Yumeji's often-warm palette — stands or sits with the slight inward curve and downcast attention that mark the Yumeji-style bijin. Blue in his color vocabulary suggests distance, depth, and a particular quality of sadness that is intellectual rather than merely sentimental — the melancholy of someone who thinks too much, feels too acutely, and cannot quite fit the life she is expected to live. The blue kimono sets this figure apart from the reds and warm tones that animate his more passionate compositions.