Tanizaki Jun’ichirō: A Writer in Pursuit of Transcendent Beauty | Nippon.com
Home
Topics
Tanizaki Jun’ichirō: A Writer in Pursuit of Transcendent Beauty
Shapers of Japanese History
Tanizaki Jun’ichirō: A Writer in Pursuit of Transcendent Beauty
Culture<br>Art<br>History
Jul 14, 2026
The Japanese writer Tanizaki Jun’ichirō established himself as a pioneer of sensual literature with a profound interest in aesthetic matters, and was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The year 2026 marks 140 years since his birth.
English
日本語
简体字
繁體字
Français
Español
العربية
Русский
-->
Among Japan’s modern writers, Tanizaki Jun’ichirō is known for his dedication to the pursuit of beauty and eroticism, and is celebrated for works like “The Tattoo,” Naomi, and The Makioka Sisters. While his early writings are steeped in the Western decadent movement, he later shifted his attention to Japanese traditions and the aesthetics of shadows. At first glance, this seems like a radical change in direction, but Tanizaki was consistent in his desire for an ideal beauty that transcends reality. Here, I will examine the development of his aesthetic sense in three stages: from the early twentieth century until the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake, from then until World War II, and in the postwar era. At the same time, I will focus on the shared aesthetic sense that remains through those transformations.
Decadent Influence
Tanizaki was born in 1886. While he was a student at Tokyo Imperial University in 1910, his short story “The Tattoo” was published in the Shinshichō literary magazine, although it did not initially draw much attention. The following year, after Tanizaki was unable to pay his tuition fees and dropped out, praise for his works from Nagai Kafū secured his reputation as a literary prodigy; Kafū was the chief editor of the Mita Bungaku literary magazine and a leading figure among those opposed to Naturalism. With the publication of Tanizaki’s first collection The Tattoo, his writing career was off to a strong start.
A first edition of The Tattoo, published by Momiyama Shoten in 1911 with a binding by prominent artist Hashiguchi Goyō. (© Yamanaka Takeshi)
In his early work, Tanizaki was heavily influenced by Oscar Wilde and others in Europe’s Decadent literary movement, valuing artificial over natural beauty and sensual pleasure over ethical considerations. His enthusiastic adoption of these values in his works led to it being labeled as diabolism (akumashugi). “The Children” and “The Secret,” published the year after “The Tattoo,” draw on Western studies of sexuality, depicting sensual beauty and desire in a direct manner not previously seen in Japanese literature.
In Tanizaki’s works of this period, rather than presenting women as real people, their bodies and accessories are depicted as visual and sensory objects. “The Tattoo” the main female character is an embodiment of beauty to admire, while the female character in “The Secret” acts to invite the protagonist to an unreal world. Beauty in Tanizaki’s early works is not a part of everyday life, but rather created through extraordinary departures from reality. In the early years of the twentieth century, Tanizaki sees beauty as discovered somewhere transcending the quotidian.
The Silver Screen
At this stage, Tanizaki’s passion for modern culture led him to film. He devoured movie magazines ordered from the United States, and offered his suggestions for establishing the Japanese film industry. At this stage, film was yet to be recognized as an art form in Japan, and Tanizaki played a part in the Pure Film Movement that aimed to change this. In 1920, he became a script consultant for the Taikatsu film studio, and was also involved in production. While his film works are no longer extant, he oversaw his own original scripts, as well as adaptations from writers like Izumi Kyōka and Ueda Akinari.
In the fictions of the silver screen, women never age and are eternally captivating. Movies go beyond reality, making adept use of light and composition to depict idealized figures with an unreal charm. This is in line with Tanizaki’s view of art’s role as not faithfully reproducing reality, but of bringing out the ideal form that lies hidden within, influenced by Plato’s Theory of Forms. His obsession with the ideal woman was deeply connected not only with his writings but also with his own love affairs and marriages.
Rediscovering Japan
The destruction of the Great Kantō Earthquake in 1923 led Tanizaki to leave the Tokyo region for Kansai, where he spent time living in both Kobe and Kyoto. The change in environment prompted a transformation in his sense of beauty. While Kantō was reduced to ashes from the fires that spread after the tremor, old traditions remained vigorous in Kansai. His 1929 novel...