The main Japanese influences on western interior design for most people are Zen and Feng Shui, so we will take a short look at them below.
Zen Interior Design
If you would like to bring some aspects of Zen into your home, the interior design will have to be minimalistic, serene and restful. Nature will be an essential part of generating that impression.
Minimalism means plain, basic colours, nothing loud. Furniture and ornaments ought to be kept to a minimum too.
People relate Zen with Japan, but in fact it is Chinese in origin. Zen is a variety of Buddhism, so it is not really a style, but a life style, a state of being, a form of religion. Zen teaches meditation in order to gain enlightenment.
Therefore, in order to create aspects of what we call Zen into your interior design, you will have to take all unnecessary articles out of your room and paint with plain colours that will not distract your mind. This is more difficult to accomplish than you might imagine, but do your best to picture what a monk’s cubicle would be like to live in.
It is probably sensible to make over only one room in your house in what we call a Zen style, because most Westerners would find it hard to live without all their ’stuff’.
No knick-knacks, very little furniture and plain colours are the order of the day. So, it would be best to start by taking everything out of the room, because it is easier to put a few items back than to take a lot out. Then emulsion the walls white or off-white, maybe ’smoke white’ - a very pale shade of grey.
An inspirational photograph with a Zen proverb could go on a wall. Maybe something by Matsuo Basho such as: ‘Do not seek to walk in the footsteps of the wise men of old, seek what they sought’.
Feng Shui Interior Design
‘Feng Shui’ is normally translated into English as ‘Wind and Water’ and it is the art of arranging objects to achieve harmony. Once again, Feng Shui originated in China, not Japan.
The real Feng Shui disciple uses the art not only for interior design but also to select a house and a burial place. Students believe that Feng Shui has an effect on health, wealth and personal relationships.
Early Chinese Feng Shui employed astronomy to discover the equilibrium between man and the universe and Feng Shui measuring devices have been found in tombs going back to 278 BC
Modern Feng Shui seeks to locate places with good ‘Qi’ (pronounced ‘Chi’). These areas are deemed to be good for humans to live in, others should not be settled and left as nature intended.
Qi means ‘air’ and is used to express the flow of energy, perhaps founded on solar energy. It is the balance between two bodies and is the principal behind Feng Shui. The opposites in this equilibrium are the ‘Ying’ and the ‘Yang’.
Feng Shui was almost unheard of in the West until Richard Nixon went to China in 1972. Regrettably, it has been re-invented in the West and now has been mixed up with magic and mysticism in the USA
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on many topics, but is currently involved with researching wrought iron candelabra. If you would like to know more or check out great offers, please go to our website at Wrought Iron Light.
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