In Praise of Shadows

by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

Therefore, it can be said that the restroom is the most elegantly designed in Japanese architecture. Our ancestors, who poetize everything, have taken a place that should be filthier than any other place in a house and turned it into a place of refinement and associated it with flowers, birds, wind and the moon to create nostalgic associations. Compared to Westerners, who treat the place as impure and abhor the mention of such things in public, our people are much wiser and have the essence of elegance.

Westerners are machines developed by themselves, so it's natural that they are designed to suit their art.

our cuisine is always based on shade and shadow, and is inseparable from the darkness.

Our ancestors, who were forced to live in dark rooms, discovered beauty in the shade of shade, and eventually came to utilize the shade to meet the purpose of beauty.

have you ever had the feeling that the rays of light in the room are different from ordinary light, and that they are particularly meaningful and grave? Or have you ever felt a kind of fear of eternity, as if you had lost track of time in the room, and the years had gone by without you even knowing it, and you would come out of it a gray-haired old man?

I don't know of any other beauty created by the harmony of colors, but if Noh theater were to use modern lighting like kabuki theater, the beauty of the stage would be scattered by the piercing rays of light. Therefore, the decision to leave the stage in the darkness of ancient times is in keeping with the promise of necessity, and the older the building, the better. The older the building, the older the building, the more suitable it is for a stage where the floor has a natural luster, the pillars and mirrored panels glow black, and the darkness from the beams to the eaves covers the actors' heads like a great hanging bell. More than half of its true strength is lost.

But as I have said before, we Orientals create beauty by creating shadows where there is none.

The enterprising Westerner, however, never ceases to hope for better conditions. From candles to lamps, from lamps to gas lamps, from gas lamps to electric lights, they are constantly seeking brightness and struggling to get rid of the slightest shadow.

you have to imagine the fluttering of a candle to understand the charm of that crimson lipstick.

The whiteness of white people is a transparent, commonplace, commonplace whiteness, but it is a kind of inhuman whiteness. Or perhaps this whiteness does not really exist. I'm sure it's just a prank created by the light and darkness, and it may be a one-time thing. But that's OK with me.

there was a high, dark, darkness that seemed to hang from the ceiling, and a shadowy candle light that looked like it might fall from the ceiling. The light was unable to penetrate the thickness of the lamp, and it was rebounding as if it had hit a black wall. Have you ever seen this kind of "darkness illuminated by a lamp"? It seemed to me to be a substance different from the darkness of the nighttime streets, and to be filled with fine ash-like particles, each one of which had a rainbow of colors. I clenched my eyelids without remembering them, wondering if they would creep into my eyes. But if the old days of palaces and brothels, where high ceilings and wide corridors were used to divide large rooms of tatami mattresses, it was common to have high ceilings and wide corridors, then the interior of the rooms would be filled with This is the kind of darkness that has always been hanging in the air like a narrow mist.

I would like to revive the world of shadows that we have already lost, at least in the realm of literature. I want to narrow the eaves of the temple, darken the walls, and remove the unnecessary decorations from the interior walls. There should be at least one house in the same category. I'd like to turn off the electric light to see how it works.