Yamanaka Shikki Lacquerware

〝Wood finished in glistening black lacquer is the very best; but even unfinished wood, as it darkens and the grain grows more subtle with the years, acquires an inexplicable power to calm and soothe.〞
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〝And I realized then that only in dim half-light is the true beauty of Japanese lacquerware revealed...  in the still dimmer light of the candlestand, as I gazed at the trays and bowls standing in the shadows cast by that flickering point of flame, I discovered in the gloss of this lacquerware a depth and richness like that of a still, dark pond, a beauty I had not before seen.
—Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows

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