The Japanese sense of beauty is most exquisitely expressed in the Japanese tea room. Perhaps more than anywhere else, the Cha-shitsu, the tea ceremony room, reflects the Japanese respect for light and shadow. When sunlight gently streams in through the Shoji sliding doors, it casts a dim light that changes with every hour of the day. In this quiet space, a number of shadow gradations are created, from the pale shadow that seems to blend in with natural light to the dark shadow that seems to absorb it. And every shadow changes as time passes. Japanese culture reveres this ever-changing tableau and this love of the interplay of light and shadow is deeply ingrained in the nation’s psyche.
The technique of bringing out the beauty of light by juxtaposing it with shadow is central to the Japanese idea of beauty. An inkstone case from the Edo period, decorated in a style called Maki-e, a technique using Japanese Urushi lacquer, is one of Japan’s traditional art forms. Elegant patterns are drawn on its jet black surface with sprinkled gold or silver powder. It is said that black was chosen as the background color so that it would accentuate the beauty of Maki-e in dark castles.
Maki-e artists used jet black lacquer in order to sink the inkstone case itself in darkness and make it become one with the shadows so that the beautiful Maki-e patterns would sparkle all the brighter.
Grand Seiko is suffused with this time honored and respected Japanese aesthetic. As eternal and ephemeral as time itself, light and shadow are central to Grand Seiko.