In Praise of Shadows

About “In Praise of Shadows”

This 1933 essay by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki is an anti-modernist work that evokes the traditional Japanese aesthetic, one that cast a spell on Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright. Tanizaki sees the empty Japanese wall not as empty but as a surface on which light traces its presence against shadow, and constructs a myth of the Japanese house originating from a roof and eaves casting shadow, calling forth shelter.