Japanese Interior Home Colors

Japanese apartments, especially in a city like Tokyo, can be small. Yet even in a small space there's room for the traditional Japanese notions of beauty and peace, and these values are imparted largely by light and color. Light and color are considerations not only for the physical space -- the walls and furniture -- but extend to the arrangement of flowers, food and the placement of works of art. Does this Spark an idea?

Balance and Harmony

The color scheme in a traditional Japanese interior seems neutral but isn't. There is much wood in a traditional Japanese home, including furniture, flooring, windows, the edges of walls, sliding screens and ceiling rafters. The wood, largely Japanese hinoki, a species of cypress, and keyaki, a type of zelkova wood, is lightly or moderately stained to rich brown or reddish brown. The walls are off white, and may be hung with paintings or artifacts like fans, very colorful papier mache masks or even obi, the sometimes elaborately brocaded sash worn with a kimono. There might be a collection of oxblood porcelain jars, urns or vases, or blue and white porcelain bowls. But the subtle lighting scheme, including the placement of akari lights, keeps everything in balance -- nothing "pops." The akari light was created by the Japanese American landscape architect and artist Isamu Noguchi, inspired by the traditional lanterns with rice paper shades stretched over wood frames and lit by candles from within.

Blue and White

Blue and white is color motif in a Japanese interior. A legend has it that the sun goddess, in a fit of anger, withdrew into a cave and plunged the world into darkness, and she was only coaxed out when her fellow gods danced before her waving white and blue banners. So blue and white is seen in everything from textiles to ceramics to old fashioned medicine vials.

Food

Food is prepared, served and eaten with an eye towards color. Japanese tradition says that eight colors should be eaten at a meal, something which might be burdensome in the modern era. But a well-set Japanese table is a work of art. One might have napkins folded like origami cranes, a blue and white plate, black lacquered chopsticks on green chopstick rests. Then there's the food itself: the red of a ginger shoot served as a garnish on grilled fish, a platter full of jewel like sushi and sashimi, the bright green of peas and trefoil sprigs in a bowl of scatter sushi.

Flowers

A floral arrangement brings not only color but also symbolism.

Flowers must be brought into the house, as they represent the change of seasons, or even in a gentle way, mortality. The arrangements could be everything from red anemones to pink camellias or wands of pink cherry blossoms to suzuki to red maple leaves. A floral arrangement could be colorful by being fairly colorless, like an individual white camellia in a jar of white porcelain.