What kind of dream is Yumeji ‘s dream?

An extremely popular painter whose exhibition is held somewhere every year in Japan, Yumeji Takehisa. I have been to the exhibition “Takehisa Yumeji: Master of Japanese Modern Illustration” held at Tokyo Station Gallery now.

See you at Tokyo Station!

The exhibition consists of four sections. Section 1 is about Takehisa Yumeji (1884-1934) in his youth. Section 2 focuses on his work, such as publishing, printing and woodblocks. Section 3 explores in more detail his work connected with music and score sheets, and Section 4 covers such topics as the original artwork for his autobiographical novel Shuppan (Sailing Off), and publications by Ryuseikaku after Yumeji’s death.
(from TOKYO STATION GALLERY website)

As the title of this exhibition “Takehisa Yumeji: Master of Japanese Modern Illustration”, inside the hall the paintings of Taisho Romantics drawn by Yumeji were in full bloom. A thin, supple and colorful world is like a dream. In the Taisho Period when Western culture began to enter, Japanese and Western mixed up, love was enjoyed, popular culture blossomed. It is an era like a slumber, which is fascinated by the fleeting images of the shortness of only 15 years.

Yumeji was a perfect match to the atmosphere of the times, but today I would like to pay attention to Yumeji as a poet not as a painter.

Actually Yumeji was a first choice for a poet.

I felt like it was near road to write poetry with shapes or colors rather than letters, so that I became to draw pictures.

(‘The way I walked’ “A junior high-school student” Volume 8, No. 1, 1923)

He wrote as above.

You can enjoy the world of poet Yumeji with “Yumeji Takehisa Poems collection”. Poems and essays are included , also paintings are included with poetry. As for the poet, like the world of paintings, there are many works of gentle, delicate and feminine impression, and it seems that every single word is dancing with a fascinating color.

Also, every poem has a very good tempo and is easy to read, and its scene appears in the eyes. Love, female, life, loneliness, travel, nostalgia, nature, the four themes are the main themes, expressing familiar life richly. Many of them were created as poems of children’s songs because of the easy-to-understand poetry.

Well, one poem of Yumeji. *I translated it.

Flower Whereabouts

A flower pops down gently.
If you ask the flowers where to go.
Dancing to the sky becomes a butterfly.
Falling into the sea becomes tellinacean (cherry shell in Japanese)
The flowers are smiling peacefully.
A flower pops down gently.

(“Picture story Children’s world”)

What do you feel? I am drawn into Yumeji world in a blink with his gentle descriptions and his sensitivity.

Many poems are creating this kind of atmosphere, but a glimpse of a different face is a little different as an essay.
Talk to the next blog!

A lot of Yumeji’s poems and essays!