Luminous environment: light, architecture and decoration in modern Japan

Abstract

From lantern to electric lighting, the motif of light has remained central to the Western visualization of Japan. Why has the motif of light been so crucial to the way in which Japan was perceived across the twentieth century? What role, if any, have Western stereotypes of Japan – seen as a mysterious world decorated by paper lights, and later as a vast urban terrain of flashing neon signs, light sculptures and illuminated billboards – played in the development of modern Japanese aesthetics and its lighting culture? Several key works drawn from literature and art may provide insight into the role that electric light plays in the move from traditional genres to the new genres of modern art: Tanizaki Jun'ichirō's ‘In praise of shadows’ (In'ei raisan 1933–4); Mishima Yukio's Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Kinkakuji 1956), as well as his ‘The idea of lighting – the birthplace of my literature’ (Dentō no aidia – waga bungaku no yōranki 1968); and Hiroshi Sugimoto's photographic installation In Praise of Shadows (1999). Crossing genres and media, these works respond in particular to the conception of Japanese illumination both from within and without Japan.