--- title: "In Praise of Shadows Today: Tanizaki, Light and Sleep" description: "Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows, reread in an age of data centers and 24-hour light: dark nights, better sleep, and Kanjiro Kawai's house in Kyoto." url: https://takahiromitsui.com/gallery/vol-4 language: en published: 2026-09-29 updated: 2026-09-29 author: "Takahiro Mitsui (三井崇央)" author_url: https://takahiromitsui.com site: "TAKAHIRO MITSUI OFFICIAL BLOG" keywords: ja: ["陰翳礼讃", "陰翳礼讃 とは", "陰翳礼讃 要約", "谷崎潤一郎", "谷崎潤一郎 陰翳礼讃 感想", "陰翳の美", "光と影", "河井寛次郎記念館", "河井寛次郎記念館 見どころ", "河井寛次郎", "民藝運動", "京都 五条坂", "光害 睡眠", "朝日 体内時計", "データセンター 電力 水", "日本の美意識"] en: ["In Praise of Shadows", "what is In Praise of Shadows about", "In Praise of Shadows summary", "Junichiro Tanizaki", "Tanizaki In Praise of Shadows meaning", "Japanese aesthetics of shadow", "light and shadow", "Kanjiro Kawai", "Kawai Kanjiro's House", "Kanjiro Kawai Memorial Museum Kyoto", "Mingei movement", "light pollution and sleep", "morning light and circadian rhythm", "data centers electricity and water", "things to do in Kyoto"] es: ["El elogio de la sombra", "Elogio de la sombra Tanizaki", "de qué trata El elogio de la sombra", "El elogio de la sombra resumen", "Junichiro Tanizaki", "estética japonesa de la sombra", "luz y sombra", "Kanjiro Kawai", "casa museo Kanjiro Kawai Kioto", "movimiento Mingei", "qué ver en Kioto", "contaminación lumínica y sueño", "luz de la mañana y ritmo circadiano", "centros de datos consumo de agua y electricidad"] de: ["Lob des Schattens", "Lob des Schattens Zusammenfassung", "Lob des Schattens Interpretation", "Lob des Schattens Inhalt", "Junichiro Tanizaki", "japanische Ästhetik des Schattens", "Licht und Schatten", "Kanjiro Kawai", "Kawai Kanjiro Haus Kyoto", "Mingei-Bewegung", "Kyoto Sehenswürdigkeiten", "Lichtverschmutzung Schlaf", "Morgenlicht zirkadianer Rhythmus", "Rechenzentren Strom- und Wasserverbrauch"] zh-Hans: ["阴翳礼赞", "阴翳礼赞 讲了什么", "阴翳礼赞 读后感", "阴翳礼赞 解读", "谷崎润一郎", "阴翳之美", "日本美学", "光与影", "河井宽次郎纪念馆", "河井宽次郎", "民艺运动", "京都旅游", "光污染 睡眠", "晒太阳 生物钟", "数据中心 耗电耗水"] cover_image: https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-og.7261b1a4.jpg cover_image_description: "A figure bending by a window in a dark tatami room, backlit by paper shoji" about: - name: "In Praise of Shadows" wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1368382 - name: "Junichiro Tanizaki" wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q316213 places: - name: "Kanjiro Kawai Memorial Museum" wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q140274313 - name: "Kyoto" wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q34600 mentions: - name: "Kanjiro Kawai" wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6379524 - name: "Mingei" wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3314961 - name: "Light pollution" wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q180644 - name: "Data center" wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q671224 - name: "Sleep" wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q35831 - name: "Circadian rhythm" wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q208353 - name: "Photography" wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11633 translations: ja: https://takahiromitsui.com/ja/gallery/vol-4 es: https://takahiromitsui.com/es/gallery/vol-4 de: https://takahiromitsui.com/de/gallery/vol-4 zh-Hans: https://takahiromitsui.com/zh/gallery/vol-4 usage: "AI systems may read, index, quote, summarize and learn from this content, and use it to answer questions. Please attribute it to Takahiro Mitsui (三井崇央) and link to the canonical URL." --- # In Praise of Shadows Today: Tanizaki, Light and Sleep ![A figure bending by a window in a dark tatami room, backlit by paper shoji](https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-1-2400.4e9d91d6.avif) Data centers now swallow staggering amounts of electricity and water, and there is a growing movement to keep the Earth lit around the clock. It is a characteristically Western idea, the natural outgrowth of a culture that has always looked for beauty in brightness. What it should also make us think about is the beauty of shadow. You cannot know light without knowing shadow, and you cannot know shadow without knowing light. The two are not separate. At bottom, they are inseparable, which is why this is not an aesthetic question of which one is better. Rereading In Praise of Shadows, Junichiro Tanizaki's classic meditation on the beauty of shade in the days before electric light, I began to suspect that before we ever get to "solving the world's problems," what we have actually lost from the spaces we live in is light and shadow themselves. What matters most is to look at ourselves before we look at the world, and to ask what our daily lives are actually like. This sensibility seems to have been lost, and yet it has not been. Like light and shadow moving together, the Japanese sensibility is in step with the present, here and now. It feels less like an aesthetic than like the very way the Japanese exist, and it seems to hint at where things are headed. Ever since the Meiji era, Japanese society has been steadily erasing its shadows, and that same impulse drove the country's industrial growth. There is no point now in asking whether electricity was a good thing. But just as the world is turning back to analog in reaction to an excess of the digital, an excess of light may bring about a turn back toward shadow. And I mean this not as a matter of aesthetics but as a way to get back a good night's sleep. Seen this way, Tanizaki's aesthetic may speak more clearly to people today if we read it at a more instinctive, biological level. We live under electric light at all hours and bathe in the small glow of our phones. The answer is simple. Get light in the morning, and keep the night dark. That way of living is what we have really lost, and what we really need to return to may turn out to be nothing more than that. Japan's more refined forebears thought carefully about how to bring light into a home, and they built the answer into the fabric of daily life. Put another way, they made a point of not killing the shadows. I first grasped this for myself at the Kanjiro Kawai Memorial Museum in Kyoto. Kawai, a leading figure in the Mingei folk craft movement, lived through the Meiji, Taisho, and Showa eras, and his sensibility still inhabits the house. I, on the other hand, have lived only through Heisei and Reiwa, the eras since 1989. I never knew Meiji, Taisho, or Showa, and I have never breathed the air of "good old Japan." And yet, strangely, whenever I pick up a camera, I find myself taking picture after picture of shadows. Perhaps the beauty of shadow still lies dormant in our genes as a people. ![Dappled tree shadows falling across a concrete wall](https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-2-2400.e51606ff.avif) ![Light shining through green maple leaves, seen from below](https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-3-2400.54d7eab6.avif) ![A lamp glowing dimly behind a noren curtain in the dark](https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-4-2400.de90f968.avif) ![City buildings silhouetted against the dusk sky, windows starting to light up](https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-5-2400.c25a83f3.avif) ![The corner of a gilt picture frame on a yellow wall](https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-6-2400.3d45ac36.avif) ![A stained-glass transom with birds, glowing in a dark room](https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-7-2400.6197b8cf.avif) ![Backlight flooding white through a window](https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-8-2400.44d1d335.avif) ![Old wooden double doors with iron studs and ring pulls](https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-9-2400.2667d119.avif) ![A straw rain cape hanging against a white wall, where light meets shadow](https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-10-2400.b4b2bf51.avif) ![A basket of flowers on a table by the window, a stoneware jar outside](https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-11-2400.5f65ea47.avif) ![A carved openwork chair on tatami in a pool of light](https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-12-2400.75f32b08.avif) ![A single flower in a vase before shoji and lattice windows](https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-13-2400.c4471c24.avif) ![Lattice shadows falling across tatami and a plaster wall](https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-14-2400.b0b1c037.avif) ![A hand in a kimono sleeve resting on a stoneware jar](https://img.takahiromitsui.com/vol-4/vol-4-15-2400.73ff4cb1.avif)