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There is an old song that says ‘the brushwood we gather – stack it together, it makes a hut; pull it apart, a field once more.’ Such is our way of thinking – we find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates. But render pitch black the void in which they stand, and light them not with the rays of the sun or electricity but rather a single lantern or candle: suddenly those garish objects turn sombre, refined, dignified. Of course, he’s also fully aware of the stuff I’ve mentioned above. Wrong! The delight in shine, in light, is purely Western, argues Tanizaki. Naturally, this all brings up the differences between cultures – why aren’t we in the West able to comprehend the beauty of shadows? I know few greater pleasures than holding a lacquer soup bowl in my hands, feeling upon my palms the weight of the liquid and its mild warmth … There are good reasons why lacquer soup bowls are still used, qualities which ceramic bowls simply do not possess. But we would have gone only in a direction that suited us. I was once invited to a tea ceremony where miso was served; and when I saw the muddy, claylike colour, quiet in a black lacquer bowl beneath the faint light of a candle, this soup that I usually take without a second thought seemed somehow to acquire a real depth, and to become infinitely more appetising as well. Reviewed by Renae Lucas-Hall A new fully-illustrated release of In Praise of Shadows by Junichirō Tanizaki, translated by Thomas J. Harper and Edward G. Seidensticker, has just … In Praise of Shadows, written by the well known Japanese novelist Tanizaki Jun'ichirō (1886-1965) in 1933, is a particularly charming and discursive rumination on the differences between Japanese (indeed, East Asian) and occidental aesthetics (among other matters). Creature comforts, as it were, which still differ enormously between the East and the West. I was somewhat encouraged; for to snatch away from us even the darkness beneath trees that stand deep in the forest is the most heartless of crimes. This battle continues to this day, it seems, with many traditionalists unhappy with the continuous push for progress which the West triggered off. In the West, most people would throw a huge tantrum the moment a scratch appears on their precious car, for example. The experience must be something like that of the tea master who, at the sound of the kettle, is taken from himself as if upon the sigh of the wind in the legendary pines of Onoe. Even now in the Indian and Chinese countryside life no doubt goes on much as it did when Buddha and Confucius were alive. I thought I would give it a try even though Japanese design was not something I had ever been interested in. English translation, Leete's Island Books 1977 . The paper quality is poor and thin enough to see the next page beneath it, the font alignment is strangely tight, I don’t know why it’s force justified but sure made it hard to look at.On top of that, it was mailed in a envelope with no backing. It is much more subtle than progressive and critical interpretations projected upon it. The fact that we did not use glass, concrete, and bricks, for instance, made a low roof necessary to keep off the driving wind and rain. One of the basic human requirements is the need to dwell, and one of the central human acts is the act of inhabiting, of connecting ourselves, however temporarily, with a place on the planet which belongs to us and to which we belong. Whenever I sit with a bowl of soup before me, listening to the murmur that penetrates like the far-off shrill of an insect, lost in contemplation of flavors to come, I feel as if I were being drawn into a trance. It would be so cutting edge to design the anti-flashy, the anti-“hot”, the anti-sexy, anti-innovation yet innovative, in a way. It suits the slight Japanese stature perfectly. He states there’s a famous restaurant in Kyoto called the Waranjiya (sadly, this doesn’t seem to be around anymore): One of the attractions of which was until recently that the dining rooms were lit by candlelight rather than electricity; but when I went there this spring after a long absence, the candles had been replaced by electric lamps in the style of old lanterns. If indeed ‘elegance is frigid’, it can as well be described as filthy. Tanizaki was a major figure in Japanese modern literature, publishing books and novels that explored an inner search for cultural identity within a … This is where In Praise of Shadows stands out, as it raises awareness of modern sensibilities and how our lives could be going wayward. We do love things that bear the marks of grime, soot, and weather, and we love the colours and the sheen that call to mind the past that made them. Seen at dusk as one gazes out upon the countryside from the window of a train, the lonely light of a bulb under an old-fashioned shade, shining dimly from behind white shoji [door, window, or room divider] of a thatch-roofed farmhouse, can seem positively elegant. Step forth Jun’ichirō Tanizaki. If you’ve moved around a lot recently, like I have, you have the knick-knacks familiar from old abodes to get you settled in – little touches like this can help a great deal. Can we turn off some of the lights? A luster here would destroy the soft fragile beauty of the feeble light. Its florid patterns recede into the darkness, conjuring in their stead an inexpressible aura of depth and mystery, of overtones but partly suggested. Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users. Sometimes a superb piece of black lacquerware, decorated perhaps with flecks of silver and gold – a box or a desk or a set of shelves—will seem to me unsettingly garish and altogether vulgar. Old people a century ago wanted to go back two centuries, and two centuries ago they wished it were three centuries earlier. Thanks for watching! While we do sometimes indeed use silver for teakettles, decanters, or sake cups, we prefer not to polish it. Our cooking depends upon shadows and is inseparable from darkness. Electric lamps, fountain pens, shiny tile, and flush toilets and mass-produced paper don’t pass unscathed. There are those who hold that to quibble over matters of taste in the basic necessities of life is an extravagance, that as long as a house keeps out the cold and as long as food keeps off starvation, it matters little what they look like. It’s a thin volume. And when yōkan is served in a lacquer dish within whose dark recesses its colour is scarcely distinguishable, then it is most certainly an object for meditation. To highlight his sincerity on the subject, he states: Anyone with a taste for traditional architecture must agree that the Japanese toilet is perfection. In England, a reserved and awkward country where many citizens still cling to traditional virtues (sickening politeness, respect for privacy etc. The hue may differ from room to room, but the degree of difference in colour as in shade, a difference that will seem to exist only in the mood of the viewer. The Japanese toilet is, I must admit, a bit inconvenient to get to in the middle of the night, set apart from the main building as it is; and in winter there is always a danger that one might catch a cold. It’s not flashy. As I was saying earlier, In Praise of Shadows is Tanizaki's effort to explain Japanese Aesthetics by contrasting it with the West. In fact, most Japanese foods have an intrinsic beauty to them. And indeed for even the sternest ascetic the fact remains that a snowy day is cold, and there is no denying the impulse to accept the services of a heater if it happens to be there in front of one, no matter how cruelly its inelegance may shatter the spell of the day. Looking at all forms of media, from the best stuff to the worst stuff, and giving it some context in the landscape of horror history. A room should be brighter in winter, but summer in summer; it is then appropriately cool, and does not attract insects. But in the still dimmer light of the candlestand, as I gazed at the trays and bowls standing in the shadows cast by that flickering point of flame, I discovered in the gloss of this lacquerware a depth and richness like that of a still, dark pond, a beauty I had not before seen. Nowadays they make even a white lacquer, but the lacquerware of the past was finished in black, brown, or red, colours built up of countless layers of darkness, the inevitable product of the darkness in which life was lived. Indeed the thin, impalpable, faltering light, picked up as though little rivers were running through the room, collecting little pools here and there, lacquers a pattern on the surface of the night itself. I suppose it is hard for those who praise the fleshly beauty we see under today’s bright lights to imagine the ghostly beauty of those older women. Why is it always gaudy bright lights and bare flesh? It is theoretical for sure, but also grounded in the subjective experience of an extremely sensitive and articulate author. It presents a different way of envisioning space, less “hot” and dynamic and more deep and subtle. However, it’s interesting to note what Tanizaki thought of as beautiful in the 1930s. There’s still that element of minimalism with Japanese people, but it’s definitely a more open and gregarious nation these days. Have you never felt a sort of fear in the face of the ageless, a fear that in that room you might lose all consciousness of the passage of time, that untold years might pass and upon emerging you should find you had grown old and gray? For a book on Design Aesthetics it sure gave zero f*s about quality or even formatting. In Praise of Shadows Junichiro Tanizaki First published in Japanese 1933. It’s an examination of how eventide can send shadows dancing from objects in your home, how architecture can help you find peace of mind, and why the humble toilet is up for such reverence. Skin and haircare products are displayed on brass shelves inside Aesop's Stockholm store, which features curved wooden walls inspired by Erik Gunnar Asplund. IPOS / In Praise of Shadows Arkitektur AB Borgargatan 6, SE - … “The parlor may have its charms, but the Japanese toilet truly is a place of spiritual repose.” It is also, in a broader sense, a cunning critique of western norms and technology that had been flooding into Japan since the mid-19th century, the culmination being two atom bombs and an American occupation under General MacArthur. It posits a world that could have been in which technology is perhaps more muted, more in the background. He’s very specific in his outlook, detailing the many elements to consider, but lighting is a principal focus. In England, the toilet is where most people have a horror story of a time just using one at work, knowing full well colleagues could stumble in at any moment. As Tanizaki concludes, “I have thought that there might still be somewhere, possibly in literature or in the arts, where something could be saved.” Could the shadow world of subtle phenomena also be saved in architecture? Tanizaki is well on his way to pointing out modern housing doesn’t cut it. All images are © each office/photographer mentioned. This is not, especially in tumultuous present, an easy act (as is attested by the uninhabited and uninhabitable no-places in cities everywhere), and it requires help: we need allies in inhabitation. From candle to oil lamp, oil lamp to gaslight, gaslight to electric light – his [the West’s] quest for a brighter light never ceases, he spares no pains to eradicate even the minutest shadow. Away from work, it’s functional and that’s about it, although some people will go to greater lengths to make their bathroom look nice. 1 likes. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. But that’s the way some of us humans roll. In Japan, they date back to the Jōmon period, which was 14,000 to 300 BCE. Before reading this book, it is good to know that Tanizaki jumps around a lot in his ideas. You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! He continues in this manner about all sorts of other things, but what is this interest in making new stuff look old? I am upset by it wherever I go in the summer. Lacquerware, if you’re a bit unsure, are decorative objects coated in lacquer. A moment of mystery, it might almost be called, a moment of trance. I blame In Praise of Shadows. It will seem odd, I suppose, that I should go on in this vein, as if I too were grumbling in my dotage. Here, I suspect, is where haiku poets over the ages have come by a great many of their ideas. Who do you know who would liken their soup bowls to a deeply profound spiritual experience? Our writer goes as far to state, “A Japanese room might be likened to an inkwash painting” – what’s quite obvious from extracts above, along with Okakura’s the Book of Tea, is the extraordinary passion Japanese people have for their craft. But the Nō actor, unlike the Kabuki performer, wears no white powder. He has left reminders & remainders of beauty through tranquility, simplicity, modesty and the use of shadows. Matter, light and shadows are their tools to create meaningful spaces and they explore what contemporary architecture can learn from traditional uses of materials. There is nothing more. “A Japanese room might be likened to an inkwash painting,” he says. Apparently, some folks complained it was too dim, so in came the electric lighting. This is in comparison to mass-produced paper in the West, which has a clinical A4 shape which is almost disturbing to behold in its razor-sharp efficiency. In Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s essay In Praise of Shadows the author explores how darkness, shadow, and nature influence and are interwoven in Japanese design. For sure, us lot over here often consider the shadows as an ugly thing. Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers. In the Shadows the World ages beautifully. In Manchester, the stars don’t shine at night – there’s just a, sort of, murky haze everywhere. To cast a shadow is to cast a ray of light, within each shadow we find shade from the harshest sun, a hint of the unknown, a glimpse of that which we cannot see or is yet to come. Such a comment isn’t surprising, especially if you’ve read my Book of Tea review. But we Orientals, as I have suggested before, create a kind of beauty of the shadows we have made in out-of-the-way places. The parlor may have its charms, but the Japanese toilet truly is a place of spiritual repose. To his immense credit, unlike many older people, he is able to recognise when he slides into “back in my day” syndrome. In the essay, In Praise of Shadows, Jun'ichiro Tanizaki takes this modern ideology and contrasts it with traditional Japanese beliefs and how this affects views on beauty and aesthetics. As I watched his hands, I would occasionally glance down at my own hands resting on my knees. The author of ‘Vox Populi Vox Dei’ column in the Osaka Asahi recently castigated city officials who quite needlessly cut a swath through a forest and leveled a hill in order to build a highway through Minō Park. There are, however, greater difficulties to deal with. Tanizaki, naturally, has an opinion on this. For so accustomed are we to electric lights that the sight of a naked bulb beneath an ordinary milk glass shade seems simpler and more natural than any gratuitous attempt to hide it. I ordered this for my husband after my son had it as required reading in college and loaned his copy to me. Yet strangely the hands of the man on the stage were indescribably beautiful, while those on my knees were but ordinary hands. He primarily did this using one thing: shadows. He goes on to discuss Japanese paper and, how in China (where primitive forms first materialised) and Japan, it’s created in a way that takes in the light. The arrival of technological gadgets has distorted this outlook, a state of affairs already commonplace back in Tanizaki’s day. It is also a scathing critique of Japan itself finding it difficult to adapt its culture to modernity.

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