Why should this propensity to seek beauty in darkness be so strong only in Orientals? The West too has known a time when there was no electricity, gas, or petroleum, yet so far as I know the West has never been disposed to delight in shadows. Japanese ghosts have traditionally no feet; Western ghosts have […]
JUN’ICHIRŌ TANIZAKI
SHADOWS
“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 […]