Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

In Praise of Shadows

陰翳礼讃

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.

The slim book you are holding is in fact a portal. Opening it, you will be led by Junichirō Tanizaki's light touch into a mysterious and tranquil world of darkness and shadows, where gold flashes in the gloom and a deep stillness reigns. If you are accustomed to equate light with clarity, the faded with the worthless and the dim with the dreary, prepare for a courteous but powerful realignment of your ideas.

Bastien Vaucher

One of the oldest and most deeply ingrained of Japanese attitudes to literary style holds that too obvious a structure is contrivance, that too orderly an exposition falsifies the ruminations of the heart, that the truest representation of the searching mind is just to 'follow the brush'.

And so it has come to be that the beauty of a Japanese room depends on a variation of shadows heavy shadows against light shadows - it has nothing else.

Out beyond the sitting room, which the rays of the sun can at best but barely reach, we extend the eaves or build on a veranda, putting the sunlight at still greater a remove. The light from the garden steals in but dimly through paper-paneled doors, and it is precisely this indirect light that makes for us the charm of a room. We do our walls in neutral colors so that the sad, fragile, dying rays can sink into absolute repose. 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. A luster here would destroy the soft fragile beauty of the feeble light.

There are no doubt all sorts of reasons - climate, building materials - for the deep Japanese eaves. 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. A light room would no doubt have been more convenient for us, too, than a dark room. The quality that we call beauty, however, must always grow from the realities of life, and our ancestors, forced to live in dark rooms, presently came to discover beauty in shadows, ultimately to guide shadows towards beauty's ends.

had we invented the phonograph and the radio, how much more faithfully they would reproduce the special character of our voices and our music. Japanese music is above all a music of reticence, of atmosphere. When recorded, or amplified by a loudspeaker, the greater part of its charm is lost. In conversation, too, we prefer the soft voice, the understatement. Most important of all are the pauses.

Yet the phonograph and radio render these moments of silence utterly lifeless. And so we distort the arts themselves to curry favor for them with the machines.

Jason Parkyn

A fully illustrated, beautifully produced edition of Junichiro Tanizaki's wise and evocative essay on Japanese culture. ‘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 book is in fact a portal. Reading it, you will be led by Junichiro Tanizaki’s light touch into a mysterious and tranquil world of darkness and shadows, where gold flashes in the gloom and a deep stillness reigns. If you are accustomed to equate light with clarity, the faded with the worthless and the dim with the dreary, prepare for a courteous but powerful realignment of your ideas. In Praise of Shadows is a poetic paean to traditional Japanese aesthetics – in a free-ranging style that moves from architecture to No theatre, and from cookery to lighting, Tanizaki teaches us to see the beauty in tarnished metal, the sombre dignity in unglazed pottery, the primacy of organic materials that bear witness to the regular touch of human hands. It is also astonishingly prescient, offering a gentle warning against the quest for airbrushed perfection, and reminding us that too much light can pollute and obscure our natural world. In this special edition, the text is accompanied by specially selected images to complement Tanizaki’s reflections and further illustrate the pattern and beauty of shadows.

Worth the hype if you read it in its context and not today's.

Sebastian Stockmarr

one of those books that makes you want to slow down and take in your surroundings more, and i enjoyed learning about the history of japanese aesthetics. got weird at points due to the times, but at least he knew he was grumbling 

willow belle

this essay has its moments. the concept of light has fascinated me recently, which had me reading this in the first place. i have to agree that the interplay of light and shadow has its way of illuminating certain details that you would otherwise miss in an object or space.

but i’m afraid that i don’t appreciate the side commentary in this piece. the misogyny towards the latter half doesn’t land well with me, as you can imagine.

kuuri

this essay has its moments. the concept of light has fascinated me recently, which had me reading this in the first place. i have to agree that the interplay of light and shadow has its way of illuminating certain details that you would otherwise miss in an object or space.

but i’m afraid that i don’t appreciate the side commentary in this piece. the misogyny towards the latter half doesn’t land well with me, as you can imagine.

Kevin Wammer

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki is obsessed with shadows and writes beautifully about them in this essay. And for me as someone who is into photography and loves how light can interact with a picture, this essay changed how I see the world a little. "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."

Anton

I have stumbled upon this essay when searching for some material on the philosophy of design. A lot of books in the category are basically rulebooks, while this piece turned out not to be, which is why I've really appreciated it.

When studying interior design or personal style it's easy to fall into a trap of just following a set of rules without understanding them or how they came about. For example, rules like "wear these patterns", "paint ceiling that colour", "match this with that", "don't match too much" are not useful for me. This essay gives no rules to follow, instead it looks into the root of it all: the play light and shadow in Japanese aesthetics. 

The main point of the book, in my understanding, is that the shadows were guiding Japanese aesthetics: from brewing a tea to building a temple. The play of shadow and light shaped Japanese houses, interior, cooking, toilets, theatre. All of which is supposed to be appreciated in a balanced setting. Unfortunately, these days there is too much light, which exposes all the flaws, eradicates shadows and, with them, the room for your imagination.

The book is well written, brings the point across and I've genuinely enjoyed reading it even if sometimes it felt dated. But my search continues. I'd love to find a book with the same approach, but with less complaints about days long gone, and more educational material.

Jeremy Wang

at times rambling and needlessly conjectural, but ultimately a genuinely beautiful elegy on the japanese aesthetic and the way of life from which it was born. i really enjoyed this attempt at a purely natural theory of aesthetic and walk away from this essay feeling a sense of awe at the way people coax rich cultures from the raw materials of life

charisa

This is an essay on aesthetics by one of the greatest Japanese novelists. The text ranges over architecture, jade, food, toilets, and combines an acute sense of the use of space in buildings, as well as perfect descriptions of lacquerware under candlelight and women in the darkness of the house of pleasure. The essay forms a classic description of the collision between the shadows of traditional Japanese interiors and the dazzling light of the modern age.

陰翳礼賛

Eduardo Sanchez

No es que sea un mal libro, sino que mis expectativas no coincidieron con lo que está escrito. Lo que sí es que me hizo entender algunas apreciaciones estéticas de los japoneses que desconocía.

Adrian Mato

Interesting POV from Tanizaki about the beauty of the shadows and the passing of time affecting daily objects. Recommended!

An essay on aesthetics by the Japanese novelist, this book explores architecture, jade, food, and even toilets, combining an acute sense of the use of space in buildings. The book also includes descriptions of laquerware under candlelight and women in the darkness of the house of pleasure. 

baelgia

Alexandria Wilkie

The translation seemed very odd and stilted. I'm curious what it would be like in the original. 

Regardless, though, the bit two thirds in where he's talking about women and skin color made me extremely uncomfortable.

All in all, I found reading this to be unsettling.

Raya 

If you love spending time in the calming darkness of your room, often find yourself drawn to the singular beauty of a burning candle or are someone who is interested into the sombre and shadowy aesthetic of the things, then go ahead and read this book.

Hugo Ahlberg

originally published in 1933, a fantastic little gem on aesthetics — western compared Japanese (where the author is from). The essay feels some times like a "stream of consciousness" in its structure, and I found the first half to be my favorite by far, but the second half is entertaining to read despite being a bit confusing.

In Praise of Shadows

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