In praise of shadows Book

"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… Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty."

This is a fascinating, surprising, occasionally amusing essay that lauds and explains traditional Japanese aesthetics relating to light and its absence. It's applied to architecture, music, writing, the costumes of theatres and temples, women, and food. It contrasts Japanese principles with the western ones that were increasingly influential in 1933, and asks if progress is necessarily good, particularly when it's imported from another culture.


Image: "The beauty of a Japanese room depends on a variation of shadows, heavy shadows against light shadows" - that's why there are so few ornaments. (Source.)

Dark and Light, East and West

"How different everything would be if we in the Orient had developed our own science."

It's not just a matter of taste. Tanizaki sees the differences arising from the landscape and the people themselves, giving rise to different paths of development - a cultural butterfly effect.

He explains how the fountain pen, "an insignificant little piece of writing equipment", was invented in the west, so there is no brush, no gentle seeping of black ink, and different paper is required. It makes writing a viscerally different experience, and its adoption in the east triggered suggestions to replace characters with Roman script, and will inevitably influence the type of literature Japanese writers write.


Image: You can now buy hybrid cartridge-filled brush pens. (Source.)

But I was challenged by the conclusions of this self-described Oriental that the fundamental reason for Japanese preference for dark and shadows was skin colour: how light plays on Japanese skin which, though pale, is "tainted by a slight cloudiness" akin to dirt in a clear pool. He even empathises with "pure-blooded whites" upset by the sight of those with other skin tones!

Protect Difference or Accept Hegemony?

In a broader sense, this is a topical question, nearly a century after it was written. How do we balance embracing the richness of other cultures with maintaining the essence of their distinct identities?

Tanizaki observes fundamental differences between east and west, and he doesn't want to erase them, though he accepts some of the conveniences that come from afar.

I remember travelling in China in 2008, being struck by how different the fashion and cosmetic ads were compared with my previous trip in 1992. They all used the palest, least Chinese-looking models - apart from those that used western models. It's one thing desiring western products, but wanting to look like a different race is tragic - except for the burgeoning cosmetic surgery sector, with specialisms in eye-surgery, skin whitening, and even leg lengthening.

Darkness to Enhance Other Senses

"Our cooking depends upon shadows and is inseparable from darkness."

I once went to a restaurant whose USP was eating in total darkness. It was an experience like no other, and flavours were surprisingly hard to identify. I relished the novelty, and the enhanced sensations of shape and texture. That's not a viable option day to day, but eating in more normal low-light, and without the distractions of cluttered walls, and background music certainly engages one more in the food itself. Conversely, too many dinners in front of the TV, where you barely notice what you eat, let alone how much, surely contribute to the obesity problem.

Tanizaki is at his most lyrical when writing about aged lacquerware in traditional low light (see quotes below):
"Only in dim half-light is the true beauty of Japanese lacquerware revealed."


Image: ÅŒnishi Isao, a traditional lacquerware craftsman works by candlelight. (Source.)

Quotes

In places, this reads almost like poetry, but is by a novelist who was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964: Jun'ichirō Tanizaki.

• "The Japanese toilet is truly a place of spiritual repose. It always stands apart from the main building, at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with leaves and moss. 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."

• "Japanese paper gives us a certain feeling of warmth, of calm and repose… Western paper turns away the light, while our paper seems to take it in, to envelop it gently, like the soft surface of a first snowfall. It gives off no sound when it is crumpled or folded, it is quiet and pliant to the touch as the leaf of a tree."

• "We find it hard to be really at home with things that shine and glitter. The Westerner uses silver and steel and nickel tableware, and polishes it to a fine brilliance… We begin to enjoy it only when the luster has worn off, when it has begun to take on a dark, smoky patina.

• "We do not dislike everything that shines, but we do prefer a pensive luster to a shallow brilliance, a murky light that, whether in a stone or an artifact, bespeaks a sheen of antiquity."

• "Darkness is an indispensable element of the beauty of lacquerware… [Traditional lacquerware] was finished in black, brown, or red, colors built up of countless layers of darkness, the inevitable product of the darkness in which life was lived."

• "In the Gothic cathedral of the West, the roof is thrust up and up so as to place its pinnacle as high in the heavens as possible… In the temples of Japan, on the other hand, a roof of heavy tiles is first laid out, and in the deep, spacious shadows created by the eaves the rest of the structure is built."

• "Japanese music is above all a music of reticence, of atmosphere… In conversation, too, we prefer the soft voice, the understatement. Most important of all are the pauses."

• "Light is used not for reading and writing or sewing but for dispelling the shadows in the farthest corners, and this runs against the basic idea of the Japanese room."

• "So dilute is the light there that no matter what the season, on fair days or cloudy, morning, midday, or evening, the pale, white glow scarcely varies. And the shadows at the interstices of the ribs seem strangely immobile, as if dust collected in the corners had become a part of the paper itself. I blink in uncertainty at this dreamlike luminescence, feeling as though some misty film were blunting my vision."

• "The color of that 'darkness seen by candlelight.' It was different in quality from darkness on the road at night. It was a repletion, a pregnancy of tiny particles like fine ashes, each particle luminous as a rainbow."

Themes

After reading this, I discovered a different edition labels 16 sections. I couldn't actually work out where all the section breaks would go, so I'm glad I read it as one continuous piece. All the themes are covered, but not solely in this sequence:

1. On construction
2. The toilet aesthetic
3. A different course
4. A novelist's daydreams
5. On paper, tin and dirt
6. Candlelight and lacquerware
7. Bowls of broth
8. The enigma of shadows
9. An uncanny silence
10. Reflections in darkness
11. Shadows on the stage
12. The woman of old
13. Beauty in the dark
14. A world of shadows
15. A cool breeze in total darkness
16. Final grumblings