Philosophy of White

Approaching White: The Asian Philosophy of Light and Overpainting

The Western Gaze and the Eastern Return

What follows is Takuma Tokunaga’s own reflection on the philosophy underlying his painting, written in response to a criticism often leveled by Western critics: that his canvases are too white, too flat.

The Misunderstanding of Flatness, and the Accumulation of Time

In Western criticism, the ‘whiteness’ of my canvases — the flatness of their space — is sometimes read as a shorthand, a simplification of volume. But that is only a surface reading of the result.

My canvas always begins with the relentless construction of form. Only after I have grasped the shape and drawn deep into the structure of light and shadow do I begin to follow the sun’s passage and the shifting of light. As I layer, moment by moment, the changing light onto the canvas, the densely worked color is gradually refined, until at last it is sublimated into a dazzling white.

Approaching White by Adding — An Eastern View

Much of Western painting builds volume and density in the world by layering shadow and darkness — black. But at the root of my own painting lies an Asian philosophy: the more one adds, the closer one comes to light, to white.

The more one adds, the closer one comes to light.

This can be likened to the arts of printmaking.

The Western Approach

Density and volume are built by layering shadow and darkness — black.

Takuma’s Approach (Eastern)

The more one adds, the closer one comes to light — to white.

Copperplate (Etching)

The more lines are added, the darker the surface becomes.

Woodblock Print

The more the block is carved, the more the paper’s own white is revealed.

My oils, though made with the Western medium of paint, carry this same Eastern, woodblock spirit — the reduction, through accumulation, back to light and to nothingness.

The White of Campo de Criptana

Standing beneath the fierce sun of La Mancha, facing its white windmills and lime-washed streets, the white I set down on the canvas is not an empty, unpainted space.

It is the most eloquent and most fully inhabited ‘reduction into light’ — arrived at only after time, light, and dialogue with the landscape have been layered, stratum upon stratum.

— Takuma Tokunaga