In Praise of Shadows - Junichiro Tanizaki

In this short essay the Japanese author Tanizaki, explores Japanese aesthetics from his experience in building his house - detailing and questioning the place for each modern facility in a Japanese house. The essay displays the struggle to maintain traditional (more importantly, accustomed) notion of aesthetics while the age necessitates modern amenities.

Here (traditional Japanese toilet), I suspect, is where haiku poets over the ages have come by a great many of their ideas. Indeed one could claim that of all the elements of Japanese architecture, the toilet is the most aesthetic.

The struggle spans even the demand for lot of maintenance, hygiene and fastidiousness. For instance, with the taste in traditional Japanese architecture, the love for the warm and soothing nature of wood makes the pure white tiles or shiny metal deplorable.

It was not that I objected to the conveniences of modern civilization, whether electric lights or heating or toilets, but I did wonder at the time why they could not be designed with a bit more consideration for our own habits and tastes.

Harmonizing technology and cultural aesthetics

Tanizaki ponders how our modern technology would take shape, had the inventions came from the East. The modern amenities from a fountain pen to a toilet siphon beam with western culture and influence. The need to rethink and redesign these equipments for different cultures and aesthetic choices is very much there. A techno-cultural pluralism is required.

Any invention carries with it its culture baggage. Every modern cookware is designed for the western cuisine and aesthetics in mind - from the shape of the knife and the brilliant white porcelain plate to the shiny silverware. The loss of the sense of belonging and identity, the leap required in adopting the culture of the invention, the inconveniences and the loss of aesthetics that has evolved over thousands of years are matters for serious deliberation.

I suppose I shall sound terribly defensive if I say that Westerners attempt to expose every speck of grime and eradicate it, while we Orientals carefully preserve and even idealize it.

The word here is harmony. An invention needs to be rethought to harmonize with the culture and its aesthetics. As a simple example, Tanizaki points out the importance and aesthetics of dim lighting and shadows in Japanese society as a whole - from dim candle-lit Nō theatres, pleasure houses and tea houses to the way shadows dance across white face of a geisha or the way suspended particles diffract the scant light rays in a large dark room. The western electric lights offer no harmony with their sudden placement in an already evolved aesthetic of Japanese homes and society.

Issues

Of course, I shan't shy away from pointing out some problematic ideas presented in the essay -like the entirely concealed women with "her face only the sign of existence" or the fact that women shouldn't show their feet to strangers. These may have been the norm back in the author's day but they ought to be viewed with a critical eye when reading today, especially in a book on aesthetics. When writing about the Japanese aesthetics of dim lighting and shadows,

For a woman who lived in dark it was enough if she had a faint, white face - a full body was unnecessary.

While I understand the lament of the author that technology needs to be designed with plurality of cultures in mind, he seems to miss the point that aesthetics also has a sociological side that often reflects some discrimination and oppression. When talking about the Kabuki theatre, Tanizaki points out that the floodlights used, makes the women (portrayed by male actors) "inspire not the slightest sense of reality". Maybe the lights can also illuminate why women were excluded from Kabuki theatre and its oppressive history.

Conclusion

A note in the afterword by Thomas J. Harper is very much pertinent to the present landscape of traditional Japanese art and the portrayal of Japanese aesthetics to the outside world.

His (Tanizaki) pessimism (and probably earthiness too) would not be at all popular with modern artistic establishment: the "masters" of flower arrangement, tea ceremony, calligraphy, painting, dance. Many of these people make handsome livings by their art, and, as the government's chosen cultural emissaries, have been influential shapers of the image of Japanese culture that is packaged for export. Tanizaki, however, would dismiss it as cold and sterile, too far removed from the sources of its life to claim any vitality.

The essay hit me hard in many ways, with its flow-of-thought style and certain honesty in its presentation. I could instantly empathize with many of the issues pointed out by the author nearly a century back, even today. I can even cite many parallels in Indian society the plights lamented by the author. As my country gains technological momentum, there is a clear lack of Indian style, of Indian perspective.

All the above excerpts are attributed to their original author(s). Book info -

Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, 1977. Leete's Island Books. ISBN-13: 9780918172020 ISBN-10: 0918172020