Woman in Despair

A woman in despair — the emotional extreme of the Yumeji-style bijin's characteristic sadness — appears in this composition at the furthest point of the trajectory from hope to grief that his work traces. Despair in Yumeji is not the theatrical expression of anguish but something quieter and more complete: the posture collapsed inward, the face turned away or down, the figure occupying a space that hope has entirely vacated. It is the moment after the romantic feeling has proven impossible, the state that follows the ending of "When the Flame Goes Out."