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I always like a book that changes the way I see the world. As a Westerner who likes LIGHT more LIGHT, this praise of shadows, the dusky atmosphere of the past and architecture which protects and conceals, where mystery is held, reborn, is a peripheral vision of existence I'd never imagined. It's been a year or so since I read it--but I still recall his image of enamelwork which is garish and awful in broad daylight, but has incredible beauty and charm in low light--which is not a defect, as we would see in Western culture, but simply that it's designed to be seen in that mysterious light of the traditional Japanese structure. LIght is taken into consideration. you don't light for the object, you create the object for that light. It reminded me of so many low=light rooms which have been particularly memorable, romantic--candlelit... theaters and nightclubs, romantic bedrooms, which yes, are horrors in daylight--but that makes us think further about the nature of pleasure and certainly, of love, in a less pejorative standpoint to the idea of 'illusion'--we Westerners live in horror of it... take all the charm out of so many things.
Just a note--the small size of this book makes a charming gift.
Just a note--the small size of this book makes a charming gift.
