In Praise of Shadows

The essay “In Praise of Shadows” was originally published in 1933 in Japan and was written by the Japanese author Jun’ichirō Tanizaki (1886-1965). His work spanned a wide array of subjects, including the cultural impact of World War II, sexuality, and family relationships. He was especially interested in exploring the cultural differences between Japan and the West. Tanizaki was awarded Japan’s Imperial Prize in Literature in 1949 and wrote novels, short stories, essays, plays, and novellas. His collected works in Japanese comprise 30 volumes.

This guide uses the translation by Thomas J. Harper and Edward G. Seidensticker published by Leete’s Island Books in 1977.

This work is a treatise on the importance of shadows in Japanese aesthetics, which he traces from the realms of architecture and theater to everyday objects and food. Tanizaki highlights the beauty of traditional forms of Japanese culture, which have a productive relationship with darkness, in the face of Western dominance and its focus on progress, which demands light and seeks to evacuate darkness.

Tanizaki begins by thinking through the dilemma of a traditional architect who may attempt to build a house in a pure Japanese style, which can deeply conflict with the wires, pipes, and other utilitarian elements of even the simplest of modern features, such as a telephone and heating. From this point, he takes his readers on a winding journey across contemporary and historical examples that demonstrate a particularly Japanese sense of taste. While these preferences have long been present in the country, he argues that they are at risk of disappearing, given the effects of a Western-led modernization and Japan’s related desire to imitate America.

One of his first arguments relates to toilets, which historically are dimly lit, immaculately clean spaces within Japanese architecture that he sees as a source of spiritual repose. He believes that the poetry of the toilet experience is ruined by Western preferences for white tile and excessive lighting. This leads to a discussion of the ways that civilization would have been different in Japan without Western intervention. In particular, he is interested in sustaining practices and tools that are suited to each national culture. For example, a distinctively Japanese fountain pen might be adapted to the specific qualities of Japanese paper, which takes in light, rather than turning it away as Western paper does.

This leads to a larger discussion of the West’s love of shine and glitter, which is characterized by polished silver and clear, bright diamonds. In contrast, Japan prefers “impure” crystals that have opaque veins throughout them and tin objects with a beauty that reveals itself through darkening over time. Similarly, he contrasts the architecture of the Western Gothic cathedral, in which the roof points to the highest possible point in the sky, with Japanese temples that lay out a low, massive roof of heavy tiles, producing extreme shadows and obscuring the buildings’ doors and walls.

Rather than simply marking different aesthetic preferences, however, Tanizaki also argues for a historically rooted understanding of beauty that relates to everyday realities. He posits that his Japanese ancestors, who had no choice but to live in dark rooms, grew to understand the beauty of shadows and play generatively with these properties in their cultural products. Indeed, Tanizaki sees the tranquility of shadows as particularly Japanese; for him, this respite from the light creates moments when he feels a pure sense of peace, and time stops.

He then continues to build his argument through discussion of other cultural forms. For example, he notes that the reflective power of gold made it not only a decoration or an extravagance but also a source of illumination within dark rooms. He also discusses different forms of theater in Japanese culture and expresses a preference for forms that use an actor’s natural skin color, as opposed to stark white face powder, to complement the shades of the costumes and connect to the natural state in which previous generations lived.

Ultimately, Tanizaki argues that differences in taste between Japan and the West are products of cultural attitudes toward change. He states that Japanese people are satisfied with their present surroundings, working with the darkness that they find around them. However, progressivist Westerners are always trying to improve their surroundings and move toward a brighter light, which eventually destroys all shadows.

His major preoccupation is that Japan is increasingly becoming more like the West, which is exemplified in his claim that “Japan wastes more electric light than all Western countries except America” (36). Across the essay, he notes that the introduction of electric light ruins many experiences, whether reducing the poetry of the toilet experience, turning the colors of theater costumes gaudy and overly bright, or eradicating the singular beauty of “darkness seen by candlelight” (34) that used to be found in teahouses and restaurants.

Tanizaki ends his essay with a final call for the beauty of shadows to be preserved in the realm of literature, even it is lost elsewhere. If the spread of modernization is inevitable, he desires just one “mansion where we can turn off the electric lights and see what it is like without them” (42).