Rating: 
Summary: The beauty of half-light
Review: "And I realized then that only in dim half-light is the true beauty of Japanese lacquerware revealed....But in the the still dimmer light of the candlestand, as I gazed at the trays and bowls standing in the shadows cast by that flickering point of flame, I discovered in the gloss of this lacquerware a depth and richness like that of a still, dark pond, a beauty that I had not before seen. It had not been mere chance, I realized, that our ancestors, having discovered lacquer, had conceived such a fondness for objects finished in it."In 1993, Japanese novelist Jun'ichiro Tanizaki laid out his views on the Japanese aesthetic sense, in a short essay entitled "In Praise of Shadows". Though by no means an encompassing exploration of the subject, and at times decidedly idiosyncratic, Tanizaki's views shed a new light - if I may use that ironic metaphor - on the art and in particular the architecture of Japan, by revealing the way in which the concept of beauty evolved in concert with the darkness or semi-darkness in which life was lived. In this respect, the essay is brilliant, and capable of radically changing one's perspective on light and shadow, form and color. Yet certain ideas of Tanizaki's can be disturbing. For example, on race and the paleness of skin, he writes "Thus it is that when one of us goes among a group of Westerners it is like a grimy stain on a sheet of white paper. The sight offends even our own eyes and leaves none to pleasent a feeling. We can appreciate, then, the psychology that in the past caused the white races to reject the colored races. A sensitive white person could not but be upset by the shadow that even one or two colored persons cast over a social gathering." Is this view the perverse opinion of one man, or the pervasive thought of a generation? I don't know the answer. Perhaps it is best to simply let time obscure these malformed passages into the shadows of his text, and to let the deeper insights - on art, food, and architecture - catch the eye and hold the attention. The essence of Tanizaki's perspective is perhaps best captured in discussion of lacquerware; his words on this subject form the heart of his essay: "Sometimes a superb piece of black lacquerware, decorated perhaps with flects of silver and gold - a box or a desk or a set of shelves - will seem to me unsettlingly garish and altogether vulgar. But render pitch black the void in which they stand, and light them not with the rays of the sun or electricity but rather a single lantern or candle: suddenly those garish objects turn somber, refined, dignified. Artisans of old, when they finished their works in lacuqer and decorated them in sparkling patterns, must surely have had in mind dark rooms and sought to turn to good effect what feeble light there was. Their extravagent use of gold too, I should imagine, came of undertanding how it gleams forth from out of the darkness and reflects the lamplight. "Lacquerware decorated in gold is not something to be seen in brillaint light, to be taken in at a single glance; it should be left in the dark, a part here and a part there picked up by a faint light. Its florid patterns recede into the darkness, conjuring in their stead an inexpressible aura of depth and mystery, of overtones but partly suggested. The sheen of the lacquer, set out in the night, reflects the wavering candlelight, announcing the drafts that find their way from time to time into the quiet room, luring one into a state of reverie. If the lacquer is taken away, much of the spell disappears from the dream world built by that strange light of candle and lamp, that wavering light beating the pulse of the night. Indeed, the thin, impalpable, faltering light, picked up as thought little rivers were running through the room, collecting little pools here and there, lacquers a pattern on the surface of the night itself."
Rating:
Summary: The beauty of half-light
Review: "And I realized then that only in dim half-light is the true beauty of Japanese lacquerware revealed....But in the the still dimmer light of the candlestand, as I gazed at the trays and bowls standing in the shadows cast by that flickering point of flame, I discovered in the gloss of this lacquerware a depth and richness like that of a still, dark pond, a beauty that I had not before seen. It had not been mere chance, I realized, that our ancestors, having discovered lacquer, had conceived such a fondness for objects finished in it." In 1993, Japanese novelist Jun'ichiro Tanizaki laid out his views on the Japanese aesthetic sense, in a short essay entitled "In Praise of Shadows". Though by no means an encompassing exploration of the subject, and at times decidedly idiosyncratic, Tanizaki's views shed a new light - if I may use that ironic metaphor - on the art and in particular the architecture of Japan, by revealing the way in which the concept of beauty evolved in concert with the darkness or semi-darkness in which life was lived. In this respect, the essay is brilliant, and capable of radically changing one's perspective on light and shadow, form and color. Yet certain ideas of Tanizaki's can be disturbing. For example, on race and the paleness of skin, he writes "Thus it is that when one of us goes among a group of Westerners it is like a grimy stain on a sheet of white paper. The sight offends even our own eyes and leaves none to pleasent a feeling. We can appreciate, then, the psychology that in the past caused the white races to reject the colored races. A sensitive white person could not but be upset by the shadow that even one or two colored persons cast over a social gathering." Is this view the perverse opinion of one man, or the pervasive thought of a generation? I don't know the answer. Perhaps it is best to simply let time obscure these malformed passages into the shadows of his text, and to let the deeper insights - on art, food, and architecture - catch the eye and hold the attention. The essence of Tanizaki's perspective is perhaps best captured in discussion of lacquerware; his words on this subject form the heart of his essay: "Sometimes a superb piece of black lacquerware, decorated perhaps with flects of silver and gold - a box or a desk or a set of shelves - will seem to me unsettlingly garish and altogether vulgar. But render pitch black the void in which they stand, and light them not with the rays of the sun or electricity but rather a single lantern or candle: suddenly those garish objects turn somber, refined, dignified. Artisans of old, when they finished their works in lacuqer and decorated them in sparkling patterns, must surely have had in mind dark rooms and sought to turn to good effect what feeble light there was. Their extravagent use of gold too, I should imagine, came of undertanding how it gleams forth from out of the darkness and reflects the lamplight. "Lacquerware decorated in gold is not something to be seen in brillaint light, to be taken in at a single glance; it should be left in the dark, a part here and a part there picked up by a faint light. Its florid patterns recede into the darkness, conjuring in their stead an inexpressible aura of depth and mystery, of overtones but partly suggested. The sheen of the lacquer, set out in the night, reflects the wavering candlelight, announcing the drafts that find their way from time to time into the quiet room, luring one into a state of reverie. If the lacquer is taken away, much of the spell disappears from the dream world built by that strange light of candle and lamp, that wavering light beating the pulse of the night. Indeed, the thin, impalpable, faltering light, picked up as thought little rivers were running through the room, collecting little pools here and there, lacquers a pattern on the surface of the night itself."
Rating: 
Summary: Western insenitivity
Review: 4 out of 6 of the currently available reader reviews show a kind of insensitive rigidity and simplistic, scientistic world view that will doom (some would say, already has doomed) Western culture, if not the entire globe. To me, they seem to miss the point and get caught up in trivial criticisms. This is an unsettling book, and it is not about shadows. It is about the bleak, empty flatness that comes with our glaring illumination (literally and metaphorically) of everything, showing everything, seeing nothing.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but limited.
Review: A fascinating small work which underscores a key point about Japanese and western aesthetics. But it has distincly wierd undertones and comes across as a reactionary pleading a very localised case. Perhaps someone will pick up the theme in a more general way which reviews the emotional and psychological content of light and shadow. Shame about the bad cover design of the new addition.
Rating:
Summary: In Eulogy of the Historical "Oriental" Aesthetic
Review: A real treat to read the work of a great literary mind on a non-literary subject, namely, the aesthetic of traditional Japan culture. I really enjoyed this part-essay, part-rumination on a nostalgic Japan-past that was falling out of favor at the time Tanizaki wrote this. Through his panegyrics, his probing examination of the "natural" beauty to be found in unglamourized, un-Westernized, and un-madeover No plays, women, and lacquerware, he weaves a rather eloquent essay in defense of it. As it stands, In Praise of Shadows is a somewhat moribund piece on the falling away of the subtlety, the grace, and the pure aesthetic he has grown to love. Such an approach is empathizable, and ultimately rewards the reader with an appreciation for the aesthetic, as it once was in Japan, and has since been historically reverred for. But, in the end, as Harper duly notes, that is all that it is--history, like a mural hanging on a wall in a museum. It is nice to admire and esteem for its cultural value, but anywhere outside of that "musuem," it is antiquated relic-ry of the past. Tanizaki's words are not a reactionary call for reversion, for a Return to classical treatments of the world, but, with resigned traditionalist sentiments, a mournful eulogy of it.
Rating:
Summary: FOR THOSE WHO PPRECIATE SHADOWS
Review: FOR ANYONE WHO APPRECIATES SHADOWS. THIS BOOK IS SENSITIVE IN NATURE, MANY FEELINGS & TEXTURES. IT WILL TOUCH YOUR SOUL
Rating:
Summary: Rationale of the Senses
Review: I found this book originally 4 years ago for $1 in a discount bin at a tiny, cheesy bookstore in a mall. Just for kicks I bought it and was delighted by the chance of finding it. It is a little gem that describes one man's view of Japanese culture and design as compared with our sterile Western ways. As a (then) student of an Interior Design degree, I found it to be a worthwhile read.
Rating: 
Summary: So boring and so whiny...
Review: I had to read this book for school. I suppose on a "scholarly level" you'd feel this book is ingenius. However for a normal guy like me, I felt this book was both boring and whiny. In every bit of this book this author constantly complains about how western things sucks and Japanese things are the best! (His words scream "Stupid Americans!") He even says Japanese filth is better than western filth!
Rating:
Summary: A misunderstood essay
Review: Reviewers are treating Tanizaki's essay as a self-righteous narrative. It is, rather, an exposition of one man's aesthetic, which, perhaps mistakenly, he attributes to a nation. At the same time, he derides this nation, Japan, for relinquishing traditionalism, in favor of utilitarianism. Tanizaki did not use this essay to belittle western civilization- he used it to emphasize how western civilization was not, according to his perspective, complementary to eastern civilization. This essay is a powerful opinion piece, reflecting one man's disdain for, or arguably bewilderment at, the changing times and the dissolving of a time and place he loved. Tanizaki is a brilliant essayist; his work is revealing of passion and insight. To take this essay as an insult, or as "boring" and "whiny," is the crudest possible assessment. At best, demeaning the essay by ridiculing it as foolhardy words written by a grumpy old nationalist does nothing but prove Tanizaki's points about the incompatibility of western and eastern aesthetic. I don't believe all of what Tanizaki said to be true, either of aesthetics or of ethnic predispositions to given aesthetics, but I believe he had a valid case as foundation for his essay, and I strongly recommend reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: But again I am grumbling.
Review: Tanizaki is no doubt learned and observant. He has an eye for what pleases himself aesthetically, and he can perceive details of objects and spaces that most people would perhaps never notice consciously. His ruminations on architecture, food, and the role of the elderly in society are especially interesting and his defense of Japanese culture and art here is well presented. However, his admiration for things Japanese sometimes feels disturbingly like mere nationalism. "Westerners" are the propagators of ugliness and the once beautiful Japanese sensibility has been tarnished with their bad sense of aesthetic. His comments on race cross into the realm of strangeness, and many of his arguments are based on taste. This may be fine. We should not expect Tanizaki to be concerned with political correctness (nor would we want him to be). We cannot expect him to deny his personal tastes either. But though I sympathize with his nostalgia, he sounds only like an old man who cannot relate to the significant changes that have coursed through all the modern world. He would rather crouch into a corner called Japan instead of embracing what good may come, even if the result is uncertainty and imperfection. It is true that shadows are undervalued. In all the arts, film in particular, it is the spectacle, the action, the excitement that behold the viewer, and we neglect the subtle, the dark, and the empty. There are spaces in between, voids and silences, that are far more important and Tanizaki wants to emphasize this point. But there must be better ways to argue this. Japanese art and culture are still very much alive. And even "westerners" can learn to appreciate that.
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