In Praise Of Shadows

In Praise of Shadows In 1933, novelist Jun'ichiro Tanizaki published In'ei Raisan (In Praise of Shadows), exploring for Western readers the significance of light and darkness in traditional Japanese culture. David Park Curry, senior curator ofdecorative arts, American painting,and sculpture at the Baltimore Museum of Art, will examine the resonances among the exquisite surfaces of Japanese objects and the varied, but highly self-conscious, emphasis upon surface treatment in the hands of several late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American painters. Subtle and subdued, shadows of Japanese art survive on numerous turn-of-the-century American canvases.