“We [Japanese] find it hard to be really at home with things that shine and glitter. The Westerner uses silver and steel and nickel hardware, and polishes it to a high brilliance, but we object to the practice. While we do sometimes indeed use silver for teakettles, decanters or sake cups, we prefer not to polish it On the contrary we begin to enjoy it only when the lustre has worn off, when it has begun to take on a dark, smoky patina.”
—Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows (1933)
Beautiful photographs!