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In Praise of Shadows
In'ei Raisan (陰翳礼讃)
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki · 1933 · Short (under 150 pages)
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What it is
A long essay by the novelist Tanizaki on Japanese taste and the beauty of dimness. Writing as electric lighting and Western fittings spread through Japan, he reflects on what is lost when shadows are abolished. He moves through the design of traditional rooms and their paper screens, the alcove where a scroll hangs in half-light, the lacquerware that only shows its depth by candlelight, the glimmer of gold in dark interiors, the old-style toilet set apart in a garden, food, the Nō theatre and the appearance of actors and women in earlier times. Throughout he contrasts a taste that seeks the hidden, the patinated and the softly lit with a modern taste for brightness and cleanliness. The tone is personal, wry and often self-mocking, and some passages, on skin colour among others, read uncomfortably today. The standard English translation is by Thomas J. Harper and Edward G. Seidensticker (1977).
Why read it
It makes the reader notice the light, surfaces and objects of ordinary life as an aesthetic matter, which is the heart of everyday aesthetics.
Where to start
Read it in one sitting, preferably in the evening with the lights low.