A Street in Kioto by Mortimer Menpes. 1901. Watercolor. Source: Japan: A Record in Colour, facing p. 82. Menpes loved the yellow umbrellas or parasols of the Japanese woemn. "What a joy is the spectacle of all those lovely yellow paper umbrellas unfurling themselves beneath a shower like flowers before the sun, so different from the dark shiny respectability of our ghastly gamps at home!" (40). On another occasion, he writes: "I shall never forget my first rainy day in Japan. I went out in the wet and stood there, hatless but perfectly 100 happy, watching the innocent shops light up one by one, and the forest of yellow oil-paper umbrellas with the light shining through looking like circles of gold, ever moving and changing in the purple tones of the street" (100). — Jacqueline Banerjee
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Bibliography
Menpes, Dorothy. Japan: A Record in Colour. London: Adam & Charles Black, 1901. Internet Archive version of a copy in the University of California Libraries. Web. 26 June 2019.
Created 26 June 2019