In the Notebooks that he kept during his many years in Paris, containing ideas, impressions, sketches and quotations, Yoshida wrote: "After reflecting seriously on life, and considering how to express the root of life in my paintings, I finally realised
that, instead of expressing the ever-changing moments of life, I should express one immovable moment that is life. After arriving at this insight, I decided to title all my paintings 命 – Inochi, that is “La Vie (Life)” and began to apply shapes and colours suitable for this purpose.” Here, contained within the inky black universe of space, Life exists within its own bounded sphere. In Yoshida’s formal symbolism, the square form often implies something fundamental, possibly linked to the Japanese character for stone, 石, that is a corner-stone or foundation. Similarly, the innermost golden square, reminds us of the square or canted lozenge shape, that Yoshida often used to express the notion of the heart, as found in Mon Coeur (1978) and Croix dans le Coeur (1970).