“Brightness and illumination are forces which can be equally as hostile to humankind as blinding darkness, under the correct circumstances. The fear and power of God’s Kingdom is revealed in hideous, brutal light, a ray of harshness which reveals ugliness, impurity, and dirt without concern for the results of such unkind exposure. Light, in Western literature, music and religion, has long been associated with God, Truth, and the divine. Harsh light unerring is the Logos eternal, revealing the imperfections of all Earthly things.

The Western obsession with light is criticized upfront by Japanese novelist Junichiro Tanizaki, who wrote a brief book on aesthetics titled In Praise of Shadows. In the book, an aging curmudgeon and defender of the traditional Japanese style chronicles the rise of electricity and the Western style in Japan, replacing his treasured darkness with bright, non-negotiable light. “I suppose I shall sound terribly defensive if I say that Westerners attempt to expose every speck of grime and eradicate it, while we Orientals carefully preserve and even idealize it. Yet for better or for worse we do love things that bear the marks of grime, soot, and weather, and we love the colors and the sheen that call to mind the past that made them.” Tanizaki uses the example of Western hospitals, kitchens and dentist’s offices as places where light exposes what might be better off hidden, rendering garish what should be “somber, refined, dignified”.”

Nice essay here by Alexander Bloom on the (ever changing) conceptions of lightness and darkness in Eastern and Western cultures.

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Painting above by Jan Anstoot

Tags:Alexander BloomdarknessGodjapanlightnesslogosshadowstanizakitheology