A fully illustrated, beautifully produced edition of Junichiro Tanizaki's wise and striking essay on Japanese culture. “We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and darkness that one thing creates against another... If there were no shadows, there would be no beauty.” This book is, in fact, a portal. By reading it, you will be guided by the gentle hand of Junichiro Tanizaki into a mysterious and serene world of darkness and shadows, where gold shimmers in the dark and a deep silence reigns. If you are accustomed to equating light with purity, faded with uselessness, and dim with sadness, prepare for a gentle yet powerful rearrangement of your ideas.

"In Praise of Shadows" is a poetic hymn to traditional Japanese aesthetics - in a freely moving style that shifts from architecture to Nō theatre, and from cooking to lighting, Tanizaki teaches us to see beauty in rusted metal, grave dignity in unglazed ceramics, and the primacy of organic materials bearing the imprint of regular human hands. It is also strikingly prophetic, offering a mild warning against the pursuit of professional perfection and reminding us that excessive light can pollute and darken our natural world.

In this special edition, the text is accompanied by specially selected images that complement Tanizaki's thoughts and further illustrate the pattern and beauty of shadows.

• Pages: 128
• Dimensions: 13x13cm