Title unknown [Young couple looking into a well] c. 1910 - 1939

Curator: Isn't this piece captivating? This woodblock print, whose title escapes us but which depicts a young couple peering into a well, comes to us from the hand of Takehisa Yumeji. It likely dates somewhere between 1910 and 1939. Editor: My immediate impression is one of quiet melancholy, despite the natural, pastoral setting. The figures are so still. Curator: I think that mood derives largely from Yumeji's mastery of line and color. Notice how the composition is built around the well’s circular form, anchoring the scene and drawing our gaze. It uses line, not only to delineate figures, but to define volumes, creating a fascinating interplay between flatness and depth. And the muted palette of blues, reds, and greens seems intentionally restrained, almost…desaturated? Editor: Precisely. Semiotically speaking, we might consider the well itself as a Lacanian mirror, suggesting themes of introspection, perhaps even the anxieties inherent to self-knowledge. Is what they are hoping for actually in the well, or simply in its surface reflection? Or it can simply be that in the mirror image, they are each other. Curator: You’re so right; it is ripe with symbolism. For me, it sparks a deep resonance – the simple act of seeking, that human impulse to discover something hidden, or to gaze into the unknown. Don't you think the flying swallow accentuates a subtle element of loneliness to this scene? Even within their closeness, each seems to be grappling with an isolated sense of contemplation. Editor: The positioning of the swallow, just above the couple’s gaze line, does contribute to a kind of narrative tension—an element that Yumeji likely intended. So while the artwork evokes stillness, structurally, it contains several important focal points: the tree under which they stand, and from which life gently drapes, the mouth of the well and that single dark bird soaring in the scene. Curator: Absolutely. Thinking about this work now, it resonates with that delicate balance between tranquility and a lingering unease, don't you agree? Editor: It highlights just how effectively a formal language becomes an emotional one; now, what would be found gazing into that well, do you imagine?