In Praise of Shadows
Ratings24
Average rating3.5
15
Ratings24
Average rating3.5
"This is a powerfully anti-modernist book, yet contains the most beautiful evocation of the traditional Japanese aesthetic, which cast such a spell on Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright.
"The contradiction is easily explained: Tanizaki sees the empty Japanese wall as not empty at all, but a surface on which light continually traces its fugitive presence against encroaching shadow. He constructs a myth of the origin of the Japanese house: it began with a roof and overhanging eaves, which cast a shadow on the earth, calling forth a shelter."
Read more: http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3159684&origin=BDweeklydigest#ixzz0iOulXDEW
Reviews with the most likes.
I really, really tried reading this, but I had to drop it. One reason why I dropped it is that while it's great to appreciate old, antiquated things, dismissing everything new is a bit much. And, okay, maybe I can see where the author is coming from, but it still feels extreme.
Another reason why I dropped it is that it simply can't keep me engaged.
And I think there's some historical context relevant to this essay, but I'm not a history enthusiast and I only read some references about it so I won't develop on it, I just thought that that is interesting and that maybe the essay is more than just about aesthetics.
Less of a book about aesthetics and more about the Japanese appreciation for nuance and the beauty of transience/time (which is most easily expressed through talking about the visual, I guess). Tanizaki crafts compelling arguments rooted in history/reality rather than abstract philosophical argument, but I can't help feel that his undercurrent of disdain and condescension sours his praise a little. You can appreciate the difference in tastes (western vs Japanese) without putting the other side down.
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.”
