Japanese paper gives us a certain feeling of warmth, of calm and repose… Western paper turns away the light, while our paper seems to take it in, to envelop it gently, like the soft surface of a first snowfall. ‘One of the most enchanting celebrations of shadows is manifested in the Japanese relationship with materials. ![]() Unlike the Western conception of beauty - a stylized fantasy constructed by airbrushing reality into a narrow and illusory ideal of perfection - the zenith of Japanese aesthetics is deeply rooted in the glorious imperfection of the present moment and its relationship to the realities of the past. At the heart of this philosophy is a fundamental cultural polarity. ![]() ![]() ‘The 1933 gem In Praise of Shadows by Japanese literary titan Junichiro Tanizaki examines the singular standards of Japanese aesthetics and their stark contrast - even starker today, almost a century later - with the value systems of the industrialized West.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |