Product Information
Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's "The Key" is a story of passion and desire, revolving around a husband and wife secretly reading each other's diaries. The novel was adapted into a film in 2022. The husband's diary is written in kanji and katakana, while the wife's diary is in kanji and hiragana, making it difficult to convey these differences in translation. The work has a strong connection to time, which is symbolically expressed in the design of the metronome, incorporating elements from the diaries.
Message
The lid of the author's box is shaped like a shadow, while the contents of the box are depicted using the maki-e technique to represent the body, matching the shadow's design. During Japan's Edo period, there was a genre of play art known as 'asobi-e.' This included hand shadow puppetry and body shadows used as entertainment at banquets or children's games. Additionally, there were cut-out shadow puppets, rotating lanterns, pictures attached to paper lanterns, and even ukiyo-e prints that enjoyed the unexpected interplay between substance and surprise, such as portraits depicting actors' shadows on shoji screens.
2024
Kanazawa
Oak, hemp cloth, lacquer, Wako silver, platinum, gold, maki-e, cut gold, silver, and mother-of-pearl inlay.
