Sometimes you’re shuffling back toward bed or the couch with a second cup of coffee in the stillness of early morning when you turn the corner and there it is: a confluence of light and object as the barely risen sun pierces a window and you behold a kind of brushless painting in progress, a still life built of the earth’s slow-but-inexorable orbit made all the more precious for how fleeting it is, impermanence (and beauty) its very essence, like a meticulously rendered sand castle doomed in mere moments by the incoming tide.
Could be a chair and pillow, a lamp and table, a cat and fire grate, a vase, the bar of soap on your sink, a tree on your porch that casts itself upon an interior wall just so, just now, and you think:
Perfect.
This.
Free for the taking, no planning, scheduling or agenda item required, no bus or plane fare or bridge toll, nothing but your attention, gently proffered, the scene itself none the worse or offended if you happen to miss it, you blithely ignorant of your loss if you do.
But oh, the places it can take you, to that rarefied Land of Repose, where pre- and trans-verbal meet, at the shimmering still point, beyond immediate care or bodily hunger, just you, and it, in a delicious aesthetic tango.
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“And so it has come to be that the beauty of a Japanese room depends on a variation of shadows, heavy shadows against light shadows—it has nothing else. Westerners are amazed at the simplicity of Japanese rooms, perceiving in them no more than ashen walls bereft of ornament. Their reaction is understandable, but it betrays a failure to comprehend the mystery of shadows. Out beyond the sitting room, which the rays of the sun can at best but barely reach, we extend the eaves or build on a veranda, putting the sunlight at still greater a remove. The light from the garden steals in but dimly through paper-paneled doors, and it is precisely this indirect light that makes for us the charm of a room. We do our walls in neutral colors so that the sad, fragile, dying rays can sink into absolute repose.”
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The quote above is from a (rare) essay entitled “In Praise of Shadows” by one of Japan’s premier 20th century novelists, Jun’ichirō Tanizaki (1886-1965). Written in 1933, the essay launches with observations on the aesthetics of Japanese architecture, particularly in its relation to the West. But like all fine essays, it spills over like a kettle of an adventurous chef’s stew burbling up against its pot lid and filling a house with delectable fragrances that linger long after meal’s end.
In extolling the virtues of architectural simplicity, Tanizaki draws on the experience of overseeing the building of his own home with a profoundly Japanese aesthetic that is meant to project a sense of calm and quietude—the home as refuge from the clamor of the world.
Underneath that, however, is a way not only of being in the world, but of building the kind of world one wants to be in.
And for Tanizaki, that means honing in on the shadows of our everyday human spaces, from bathrooms to kitchens to sitting rooms, far removed from the spotlights of commerce and celebrity. And not only our physical spaces, but the internal, emotional plains that sprawl across our consciousness every waking (and dreaming) moment of our lives.
In shadow, we find subtlety, nuance, hiddenness and mystery shifting with each moment’s rising and falling of the sun. And much, much else as we hunker down to the marvels of winter light and the delicate dance it engages us in with our endless shape-and-shadow-shifting world, if we have but eyes to see—and attention to pay…
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“The picture of a shadow is a positive thing.”
—From John Locke’s, “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” (1690)
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“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended…”
—From William Shakespeare’s, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1600)
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“Rising from the past, my shadow
Comes silently to meet me.”
—From Anna Akhmatova’s poem, “The Souls I Love Are on High Stars” in
“The Complete Poems” (1990)
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“You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into…the Twilight Zone.”
—One of several variations in the introduction to Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” (1959-1964)
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“Alas! must it ever be so?
Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go,
And fight our own shadows forever?”
—From Owen Meredith’s (Lord Lytton) “Lucile” (1860)
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See and hit the Follow button at https://www.facebook.com/andrew.hidas for regular 1-minute or less dispatches from the world’s great thinkers, artists and musers, accompanied always by lovely photography.
Deep appreciation to the photographers! Unless otherwise stated, some rights reserved under Creative Commons licensing
Homepage rotating banner photos (except for library books) by Elizabeth Haslam https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhaslam/
Library books by Larry Rose, Redlands, California, all rights reserved, contact: larry@rosefoto.com
All shadow photos by Andrew Hidas https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewhidas/
Did Jun’ichirō Tanizaki ever meet Frank Lloyd Wright? If they did, they might have sat on a tatami with sake in one hand and wagashi in the other and agreed that the interplay between organic simplicity and shadowy nuance in architecture was a match made in heaven. Like Rick and Captain Renault in Casablanca, it would have been the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
A Wright-Tanizaki meetup seems like a natural, Robert, so I typed your question into Google and came up with some hints they may have crossed paths, but no definitive mention. First, a reference from a 1955 article in The Atlantic magazine that was about Tanizaki and also featured long excerpts from the essay discussed above: “Tanizaki pauses here to praise Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel in Tokyo for its quiet indirect lighting and to damn the Miyako Hotel, so generous with its lights that it becomes a furnace on a summer night.”
Wright was born 19 years earlier that Tanizaki but they died only six years apart, so they were certainly contemporaries. Another article from a periodical on Japan (https://www.deeperjapan.com/) cites Wright’s strong affinity for all things Japanese:
“But Wright also insisted Japanese aesthetic ideals were not so much inspiration for his designs as confirmation of his worldview. To that end, Wright scholars would argue that he was simply primed to see things in Japan that others weren’t, which served as validation of the philosophy already underpinning his work.”
So sure, go ahead and create that conversation and come back to share it when you’re done!
Dear Andrew ~
Thank you for this beautiful gift. Your thoughtful celebration of shadows and the ephemeral beauty that is all around us was a delight to read, similar to watching a transitory shadow in progress.
And then discovering that the shadow photos were all yours… a bonus burst of joy!
Always glad to help brighten up someone’s mid-December day, Mary, so thanks for dropping in and letting me know. Can’t remember when it happened now, but at some point in my camera-phone-in-my-pocket life I started noting shadows in a very different way than I had before, and the shadow became something more than just another Jungian archetype!
I had no idea you’d do the research on but THANKS!
Andrew, a lovely exploration of a simple awareness that can be perceived as art in life, ‘light’ness that can render sensations and even emotions….an aid to relaxation, comfort in muted edges, the non-competitive essence of light-dark…
Thanks for your gift of peaceful stimulation to recall my own such joys in reverie. I do enjoy the moving shadows with glints of light sparkling on water.
Wishing you, your family and friends here a warm holiday.
Marianne
So happy you stopped by, Marianne, for some sharing of these oases, these shelters from the storm(s). Thanks and all best on your end for the holidays.
This post is a much needed reminder to slow down, breathe, and engage the senses in all of the wonder of life surrounding and nurturing us always. We lie in a world with so many visual and audio inputs that noticing the beauty of a plant, a tree, a mountain ridge, or the shadow cast upon daily objects in our lives requires conscious and thoughtful intention. Many thanks for an important reminder to look up from iphones, ipads, and screens of all sorts in order to be present in a non-digital existence.
I suspect we need such reminders through the whole of our lives, Jay. I used to think once I “got” it—the big picture, the deeper perspective, the wide angle, the three-dimensional story, then it would represent some permanent, immutable change in consciousness. A sort of practice-makes-perfect approach (and hope!), but the truth is, nothing and nobody is perfect, and it’s all practice…where the coach’s reminders never cease!
In every home I’ve lived in over these many years I have had an accompanying “shadow walk” that featured my favorite shadows during my nighttime strolls, made by trees, shrubs, fencing, statuary….usually cast under the halo of a street lamp (I turned my collar to the cold and damp), lights from someone’s window, and of course the light of the moon in its various stages.
The tour change with the seasons, as trees assume new leaves and cast them aside, branches break off in a storm, sunflowers sprout and eventually tower in a neighbor’s garden, someone leaves the wrought iron gate open and EVERYTHING changes.
It’s a unique form of walking meditation that invites awareness, reflection; I love it, very much.
There’s an album by John Gorka entitled “So Dark You See”. Seems appropriate.
Coincidentally, we went to a Winter Revels performance recently, and I found myself watching the shadows of the performers rather than the performers themselves,
I thought to myself that I would actually prefer to watch the shadows than the performers, but about then the lighting changed on stage and the shadows disappeared.
Yep, Mary, it’s a whole different thing at night—adding a bit of a spooky element to it. I have a fave video of mine with the trees waving like mad in a strong night wind as I walked, woo-woo! I’ll have to revisit that Gorka album; it may well contribute to this discussion…
Great anecdote, Loren! One makes friends with shadows, and the whole world becomes a canvas upon which they dance for our pleasure!
Shadows are one of my favorite things to notice, I’m glad that you wrote about noticing them!