Japan House explores the color white in 'Shiro: a scale of nuances'

Japan House São Paulo opens the unprecedented, free show "Shiro: uma escala de nuances", which places the color white at the center of Japanese culture. The exhibition traces white through four elements: snow, paper, silk and salt.

In Japan, there is a chromatic culture of its own, the Nihon no dentōshoku ("traditional colors of Japan"). Among them, white holds a particular place in Japanese sensibility: it evokes peace, purification, lightness, silence and precision. It is this color, and no other, that guides the entire exhibition.

The show reads the nuances of white as a thread of cultural meanings, moving away for good from the idea of an empty color to reveal a sensitive, symbolic scale.