Title: In Praise of Shadows.pdf Author: Emil Created Date: 8/31/2015 1:47:47 PM 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. The title clearly shows a preference for dark over light, which equates with traditional spaces and surfaces over bright modern ones. In making for ourselves a place to live, we first spread a parasol to throw a shadow to the earth, and in the pale light of the shadow we put together a house. But that’s the way some of us humans roll. Remember, Japan had resided quite happily for a very long time in nationalistic solitude, broken by the Americans in a forceful display of military and technological dominance. The inevitable source here is Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows, a classic text that has become so ubiquitous in architects’ discussions of traditional Japanese aesthetics that Hayward acknowledges that it is “a bit cliché.” But the contrast with the Australian celebration of light nonetheless provided a potent design stimulus. 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. And from these delicate differences in the hue of the walls, the shadows in each room take on a tinge particularly their own. The parlor may have its charms, but the Japanese toilet truly is a place of spiritual repose. Yet strangely the hands of the man on the stage were indescribably beautiful, while those on my knees were but ordinary hands. 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. 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. Fashion isn’t something I know much about, but it’s all about the aesthetics, yes? Tanizaki, a much-celebrated author across the world, felt Western countries were doing themselves a disservice by turning, increasingly, to modern technology such as electric lights. There’s no reason why discussing toilets should reduce people to embarrassed silences or bouts of giggling. Perhaps he didn’t anticipate the impact his little essay would have on a western audience hungry for cultural alternatives. This is an enchanting essay on aesthetics by one of the greatest Japanese novelists. Here, however, he’s unhappy with the relentless desire for progression amongst the West. How simple and insignificant cream-filled chocolates seem by comparison. I do not ask that this be done everywhere, but perhaps we may be allowed at least one mansion where we can turn off the electric lights and see what it is like without them. While we do sometimes indeed use silver for teakettles, decanters, or sake cups, we prefer not to polish it. Let me take a familiar example: now that we cannot cross an intersection without consulting a traffic signal, old people can no longer venture confidently out into the streets. No words can describe that sensation as one sits in the dim light, basking in the faint glow reflected from the shoji, lost in meditation or gazing out at the garden. 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. The novelist Takebayashi Musōan said when he returned from Paris a few years ago that Tokyo and Osaka were far more brightly lit than any European city; that even on the Champs-Élysées there were still houses lit by oil lamps, while in Japan hardly a one remained unless in a remote mountain village. And there may be some who argue that if beauty has to hide its weak points in the dark it is not beauty at all. It presents a different way of envisioning space, less “hot” and dynamic and more deep and subtle. A luster here would destroy the soft fragile beauty of the feeble light. ), you certainly don’t have a full on discussion about toilets with someone. The Westerner has been able to move forward in ordered steps, while we have met superior civilization and have had to surrender to it, and we have had to leave a road we have followed for thousands of years. It’s also another essay that, essentially, has an intellectual go at the West. Having been in a position where I’ve had to constantly move around over the years, it’s true you connect with your home. The ‘mysterious Orient’ of which Westerners speak probably refers to the uncanny silence of these dark places. 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. As I have said there are certain prerequisites: a degree of dimness, absolute cleanliness, and quiet so complete one can hear the hum of a mosquito. In Manchester, the stars don’t shine at night – there’s just a, sort of, murky haze everywhere. ( Log Out /  They’re often served in a concise way, if not outright cute (kawaii – cuteness – culture remains strong in Japan now, more so than ever before) to bring forth the natural aesthetics. 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. I’m sure Tanizaki would have been aghast at life in 2018; laptops, smartphones, HD televisions, video games consoles – they all beam around us 24/7 and it’s already well known amongst medical professionals they play havoc with our sleep patterns (along with many other issues). If the lacquer is taken away, much of the spell disappears from the dream world built by that strange light of candle and lamp, that wavering light beating the pulse of the night. It’s somewhat problematic because it evokes a lot of wincing among PhD’s due to its “self-Orientalizing” inflections and evocations of the west versus the east paradigms, setting up absolutist juxtapositions and contrasts that position each in opposition to the other, the east being the “traditional” and “spiritual” and “passive.” All valid points for lit crit and certainly true for the period from whence it came. After I read In Praise of Shadows early in 2017, I also came to understand how you can further appreciate your environment. Tanizaki was a major figure in Japanese modern literature, publishing books and novels that explored an inner search for cultural identity within a … And surely there could be no better place to savour this pleasure than a Japanese toilet where, surrounded by tranquil walls and finely grained wood, one looks upon blue skies and green leaves. 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. It would take a subtle hand and a high measure of restraint in an era when it is possible to design and build just about anything out of anything. A room should be brighter in winter, but summer in summer; it is then appropriately cool, and does not attract insects. 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. One of the central tenets of Tanazaki’s essay is the use of candles above harsh electric lamps. I marvel at our comprehension of the secrets of shadows, our sensitive use of shadow and light. I am upset by it wherever I go in the summer. Outside it will be cool, but inside it will be ridiculously hot, and more often than not because of lights too strong or too numerous. Plus, you’ll got all those smoking hot guys due to it, which the logic appears to point at. But as the poet Saitō Ryokuu has said, ‘elegance is frigid.’ Better that the place be as chilly as the out-of-doors; the steamy heat of a Western-style toilet in a hotel is most unpleasant. Here’s an example – a diaoqi (carved laquer dish). That was some four or five years ago, before the vogue for neon signs. To his immense credit, unlike many older people, he is able to recognise when he slides into “back in my day” syndrome. © All rights reserved. There is a reason for this approach, of course. To highlight his sincerity on the subject, he states: Anyone with a taste for traditional architecture must agree that the Japanese toilet is perfection. 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. Ever so slight, it easily gets lost amongst more substantial books. Why should we, the West, care about such an innocuous matter? Change ). In Praise of Shadows is a collection of essays by Junichiro Tanizaki, a Japanese author and essayist, discussing the sensation of beauty that is unique to Japan. In England, a reserved and awkward country where many citizens still cling to traditional virtues (sickening politeness, respect for privacy etc. We would have gone ahead very slowly, and yet it is not impossible that we would one day have discovered our own substitute for the trolley, the radio, the airplane of today. Living in these old houses among these old objects is in some mysterious way a source of peace and repose. Upon discussing this further, he highlights the natural beauty of the Japanese people. It was so enlightening. If you live in the city, come evening you can look up into the sky and barely see any stars. I graduated with a degree in Mass Communications, and I wanted to use that to help create analytical videos about media, while also recommending different titles and creators that I appreciate with a strong focus towards horror. Hey, if you also began thinking I was writing nonsense about the link to the tea masters from Kakuzo Okarua’s essay, then you thought wrong! But in recent years the pace of progress has been so precipitous that conditions in our own country go somewhat beyond the ordinary. Learn how your comment data is processed. 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. 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. Old people a century ago wanted to go back two centuries, and two centuries ago they wished it were three centuries earlier. There’s a clinical but relaxed nature to it, with many astute lessons on how you can structure the world around you to find some peace of mind. It’s interesting to note “kimono”, in its translation into English, means, “thing to wear”. Although it’s changed in Japan in recent years, traditional dress is still very much in place. In my Book of Tea review, there’s a brief history of how Japan, after centuries isolated from the rest of the world, rapidly went about its modernisation. _Resa, No problem, madam, this dude got me into candles. In Praise of Shadows works with idea, material and site as ingredients to create specific architecture. I’m almost positive we could do a diagram tracing Apple’s design sensibilities back to something in Japan and perhaps farther back to Chinese aesthetics—where much of Japanese aesthetics was derived initially. 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. The sheen of the lacquer, set out in the night, reflects the wavering candlelight, announcing the drafts that find their way from time to time into the quiet room, luring one into a state of reverie. Matter, light and shadows are their tools to create meaningful spaces and they explore what contemporary architecture can learn from traditional uses of materials. 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. There’s still that element of minimalism with Japanese people, but it’s definitely a more open and gregarious nation these days. Whilst technological progress can be a great thing, it’s also important to remember some of humanity’s ancient traditions. This battle continues to this day, it seems, with many traditionalists unhappy with the continuous push for progress which the West triggered off. It’s almost impossible to find moments of quiet in a bustling city – even returning back home to a flat, you’re going to have neighbours arguing, music blasting, revellers raving etc. I thought I would give it a try even though Japanese design was not something I had ever been interested in. If the roof of a Japanese house is a parasol, the roof of a Western house is no more than a cap, with as small a visor as possible so as to allow the sunlight to penetrate directly beneath the eaves. The very thought annoys me. Whether it’s a futon (Japanese bed), the tea ceremony, or the layout of a home. Creature comforts, as it were, which still differ enormously between the East and the West. Tanizaki, naturally, has an opinion on this. As he covered in his 1929 novella Some Prefer Nettles, this caused a seismic shift forward where traditional Japan had to work in tandem with a new industrial vision. But if the family business involves the entertainment of customers in summertime, the gentleman of the house cannot afford to indulge his own tastes at the expense of others. Shadows are where the sun shines. Directed by Kayla Reopelle, Evan Raymond Spitzer. Can we turn off some of the lights? Like Tanizaki says, “But again I am grumbling.”. 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. The shiny, reflective, well-lit world of western power and efficiency would have been more nuanced by depth, patina, wear. In the West, we’re obviously more used to ceramics – particularly in this day and age. Saved by Dezeen. It may seem an irrelevance, but if you’re clutching a lacquerware bowl instead of a ceramic one with your miso soup, it would appear there’s no comparison. English translation, Leete's Island Books 1977 . In Praise of Shadows, a book written in the 1920s, is a brief study of conflict; conflict between what the author, Junichiro Tanizaki, saw as the recipe for appreciating the nuanced, aesthetic beauty of life (essentially Asian) versus the practical, technologically-driven approach to experiencing life championed by the west. It always stands apart from the main building, at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with leaves and moss. Again, as with the Book of Tea, life is all about finding those moments of simplistic comfort to ensure you’re getting some decent psychological well-being. The cloudly translucence, like that of jade; the faint, dreamlike glow that suffuses it, as if it had drunk into its very depths the light of the sun; the complexity and profundity of the colour – nothing of the sort is to be found in Western candies. He felt this was disrupting the human way of life and simplicity was in order to find some inner harmony. 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. This, then, is where In Praise of Shadows reaches one of its central points – how Japanese rooms depend on “a variation of shadows, heavy shadows against light shadows”. Naturally, this all brings up the differences between cultures – why aren’t we in the West able to comprehend the beauty of shadows? Tanizaki is well on his way to pointing out modern housing doesn’t cut it. A new translation by Gregory Starr was published in December 2017. The missteps and inconveniences this has has caused have, I think, been many. Ceramics are heavy and cold to the touch; they clatter and clink, and being efficient conductors of heat are not the best containers for hot foods. I blame In Praise of Shadows. There are, however, greater difficulties to deal with. It will seem odd, I suppose, that I should go on in this vein, as if I too were grumbling in my dotage. In the Shadows the World ages beautifully. Turn some of them off and in no time at all the room is refreshingly cool. Like “Und wer unbedingt diese Unansehnlichkeit betrachten will, der wird zugleich jegliche vorhandene Schönheit zunichte machen, gerade wie wenn er ein Licht von hundert Kerzenstärken auf die Wandnische eines Teeraums richtete.” Can a simple bulb provide this? The toilet is there in the corner and you don’t discuss it. And not just shadowy in terms of light, but in its elemental qualities, its material sensation, the way it “stands”. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. I may be alone in thinking so, but to me it seems that nothing quite so becomes the Japanese skin as the costumes of Nō theatre [a form of musical drama]. In the toilet somewhat more vexatious problems arise. Tanizaki has done exactly what he intended to do. 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. I have my daily porridge, wheatgerm, pumpkin seeds, and whatnot in a big old ceramic bowl. By definition, a shadow is "a dark area or shape produced by a body coming between rays of light and a surface". Charles Moore, the School of Architecture at the UCLA, provides a nifty little foreword to get the shadows dancing. I seem to spend a great deal of time in subtle lighting. 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. The Japanese way isn’t some subversive attempt to mock the establishment, though. He tells of how he built his home (“I spent a great deal more money than I could afford to build a house”) and his troubles with getting the right architectural set up. And I realised then that only in dim half-light is the true beauty of Japanese lacquerware revealed. In Japan, they date back to the Jōmon period, which was 14,000 to 300 BCE. There were voices of discontent about all the changes Tanizaki was seeing during his era, as we have no whenever another piece of land is obliterated for a housing complex or an airport. ( Log Out /  Skin and haircare products are displayed on brass shelves inside Aesop's Stockholm store, which features curved wooden walls inspired by Erik Gunnar Asplund. Miso soup, being a favourite Japanese dish of mine, takes on particularly reverential qualities for Tanizaki. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. For one, Tanizaki has a cutting sense of humor. The storehouse, kitchen, hallways, and such may have a glossy finish, but the walls of the sitting room will almost always be of clay textured with fine sand. Here, I suspect, is where haiku poets over the ages have come by a great many of their ideas. This was the genius of our ancestors, that by cutting off the light from this empty space they imparted to the world of shadows that formed there a quality of mystery and depth superior to that of any wall painting or ornament. If light is scarce then light is scarce; we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty. In Praise of Shadows is as much of a gentle nod towards Eastern aesthetics as it is a castigation of Western ones. The dark miso soup that we eat every morning is one dish from the dimly lit houses of the past. Whether it’s simply turning to candles in the evening or taking up lacquerware, you’ve got a chance to hunt down some well deserved moments of “repose”, as Tanizaki was keen to get across. Lacquerware, if you’re a bit unsure, are decorative objects coated in lacquer. We do our walls in neutral colours so that the sad, fragile, dying rays can sink into absolute repose. Awful awful quality print. Then the lid is briskly lifted, and this pure white freshly boiled food, heaped in its black container, each and every grain gleaming like a pearl, sends forth billows of warm steam – here is a sight no Japanese can fail to be moved by. 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. In Praise of Shadows reminds us of other realms, other feelings that architectural space can evoke, ways of designing for repose, reflection, and solitude in a world that places emphasis on striving, action, and noise. Way isn ’ t pass unscathed period, which was 14,000 to 300.... Colours so that the sad, fragile, dying rays can sink into absolute.. You follow miso soup that we eat every morning is one dish from the dimly lit of... 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