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Japanese Influences On Interior Design
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 ideas of Zen into your home, the interior design will have to be minimalistic, serene and restful. Nature will be an essential part of creating that atmosphere. Minimalism means plain, simple colours, nothing strident. Furniture and ornaments should be kept to a minimum too. People relate Zen with Japan, but actually it is Chinese in origin. Zen is a form of Buddhism, so it is not really a style, but a life style, a state of being, a form of religion. Zen incorporates meditation in order to gain enlightenment. Therefore, in order to create features of what we call Zen into your interior design, you will have to take all unnecessary items out of your room and paint with plain colours that will not sidetrack your mind. This is harder to accomplish than you might imagine, but do your best to visualize what a monk's cell 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 ornaments, very little furniture and plain colours are the order of the day. So, it would be best to begin by taking everything out of the room, because it is simpler to put a few things back than to take a lot out. Then paint the walls white or off-white, say 'smoke white' - a very pale shade of gray. An inspiring photograph with a Zen saying could go on a wall. Perhaps something by Matsuo Basho like: '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 usually translated into English as 'Wind and Water' and it is the art of arranging objects to realize 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 choose a house and a burial plot. Students believe that Feng Shui has an effect on health, prosperity and personal relationships. Early Chinese Feng Shui employed astronomy to discover the symmetry between man and the universe and Feng Shui measuring devices have been found in graves going back to 278 BC Modern Feng Shui seeks to find places with good 'Qi' (pronounced 'Chi'). These locations 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 describe the flow of energy, perhaps based 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. source: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=2918952 |
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