Paperback, 80 pages
Published May 3, 2001 by Vintage.
In Praise of Shadows
3 stars
(1 review)
"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: www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3159684&origin=BDweeklydigest#ixzz0iOulXDEW
"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: www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3159684&origin=BDweeklydigest#ixzz0iOulXDEW
Subjects
- Aesthetics
- General & Literary Fiction
- Fiction