Junichiro Tanizaki's 'In praise of shadows' provides many thought provoking ideas. Aside from refreshing an appreciation for shadows and the Japanese sensibility towards light, texture and materiality there are plenty of ideas that can relate to everyday life, perhaps not in the way Tanizaki had intended.
When speaking of the Japanese room he states 'A luster here would destroy the soft fragile beauty of the feeble light. We delight in the mere sight of the delicate glow of fading rays clinging to the surface of a dusky wall, there to live out what little life remains to them. We never tire
Junichiro Tanizaki's 'In praise of shadows' provides many thought provoking ideas. Aside from refreshing an appreciation for shadows and the Japanese sensibility towards light, texture and materiality there are plenty of ideas that can relate to everyday life, perhaps not in the way Tanizaki had intended.
When speaking of the Japanese room he states 'A luster here would destroy the soft fragile beauty of the feeble light. We delight in the mere sight of the delicate glow of fading rays clinging to the surface of a dusky wall, there to live out what little life remains to them. We never tire of the sight, for to us this pale glow and these dim shadows far surpass any ornament. And so, as we must if we are not to disturb the glow, we finish the walls with sand in a single neutral colour. The hue may differ from room to room, but the degree of difference will be ever so slight; not so much a difference in colour as in shade, a difference that will seem to exist only in the mood of the viewer.'
While at once a beautiful paragraph speaking of delicate shadows in the last light of the day, I read the last sentence over and over and it became a whole new meaning unto itself . . . 'the degree of difference will be ever so slight; not so much a difference in colour as in shade, a difference that will seem to exist only in the mood of the viewer.' These words feel so loud. Take them away from the context of the art/design world and apply it to the way we live. To the way humans treat each other. It speaks to the way we should see our differences as only slight variations, subject to our own capacity to love and accept. To our own capacity to understand others taking away the need for segregation and power based on our differences.
As has always been the plan for Vaughan Baker, we want to appeal to all people regardless of gender or status. We want to unite people and ideas from Melbourne to Hobart, Chicago and Kyoto and see these products and the ideas behind them as the work of great, and honest people. People just like us, who live within a wavering variation of our own reality.