Note: The text below is the transcript of the YouTube video above.
When I came back to Japan after a long time and was looking at the autumn leaves in Kyoto, I suddenly had this thought: Maybe the travellers from overseas here don’t feel the same way about this red that’s totally captivating me right now.
Not because they’re cold-hearted or anything. I mean, maybe the world they’re actually seeing is just fundamentally different from mine?
Or like, when I brought Japanese pottery back to my place in London, I also remember thinking “Wait, something feels different.” Or when I saw the colours in Southern France – they felt so much more intense than what I see in Japan.
By the end of today’s video, you’ll understand why the same red looks different to different people, why Japanese aesthetics prefer harmony while other cultures prefer contrast, and what’s actually creating these differences in how we see the world.
This is deeper than you think.
By the way, I’m Satomi Takayama, a London-based artist who was born and raised in Japan. On this channel, I share inspirations I’m collecting for my creative journey ahead – art, craftsmanship, design, and the stories behind them.
So what I found while learning this is that how we “feel” the world is actually created by five overlapping factors: culture and aesthetics, language, the eye, materials, and light and air.
Today, we will explore these five together. This could be fun trivia that changes how you see the world on your next trip. And if you’re producing something overseas, it might help you understand what people from different cultures are actually seeing.
For me, this question was really personal. I’m trying to create things and spaces overseas, and if the same thing can look completely different depending on where you see it or who’s looking at it, I got really curious – what does my sense of “beauty” actually look like to other people?
Doesn’t that make you curious, too?
Anyway, grab some coffee, and let’s get started.
1. Aesthetics
Time
The first thing I want to look at is the difference in aesthetics itself – meaning what we find beautiful.
I learned that even when looking at the same world, how we feel about things is quite different depending on our culture.
Here, I want to talk about three philosophical differences between Japan and the West – the cultures I am more familiar with.
This isn’t about what’s right or wrong. I’d just be happy if you enjoy it as like, “Oh, interesting – there’s this way of seeing things too.”
Okay so first, let’s look at how different cultures think about “time.”
Let’s start with Europe, where Christian culture is more strong.
In Christian cultural areas centred around Europe, the idea of “eternity” has been a really important theme since ancient times. God’s eternal nature, eternal life. The desire to preserve the order and beauty of the world God created, beyond time. That kind of faith perspective has influenced how architecture and art developed.
That’s why “buildings that stand for long periods” came to mean places of devotion to God and symbols of faith communities – resonating with this religious idea of “eternity.”
Of course, practical things like available stone and building techniques mattered too. But this ‘wish for eternity’ made people more likely to choose long-lasting materials like stone, brick, glass and thick oil paints.
At least, we can say that church architecture and a lot of the art decorating their interiors developed in the direction of “keeping form and colour as much as possible over time,” and they’ve kept being restored as needed.
And then, this material choice connects to why landscapes in those places tend to look sharper, but I’ll get into that more later in the materials section.
On the other hand, when you look at Japan, what you see is pretty different.
First off, Japan’s practical conditions were different from the West: there were tons of natural disasters, starting with earthquakes, plenty of timber resources around, and the climate had lots of humidity and rain. In that context, an architecture culture centred on wood naturally developed, based on the idea that “when things break, you fix them” and “when they wear out, you rebuild.”
The fact that many Japanese shrines, temples, and traditional townhouses have structures combining wood, paper, and earthen walls is deeply connected to these environmental conditions that go way back.
And then, on top of this reality, the worldviews of Buddhism and Shinto were layered on top to shape Japan’s unique sense of time.
The Buddhist teaching of “impermanence” – this sense that all things change and will eventually transform.
And the way Shinto cherishes nature itself – mountains, forests, rocks, and trees. This feeling of accepting things as they are, knowing they’ll inevitably change – this eventually came to resonate with what later generations would call the aesthetic of “wabi-sabi.”
Wooden pillars, tatami mats, shoji screens – they all get sun-bleached over time, and vivid colours shift to softer, yellowed tones. In Japan, we haven’t just seen this change as “deterioration.” We’ve received it as a kind of flavour that’s born from time seeping in.
As a result, in many traditional Japanese interiors, very strong primary colours were used more sparingly, and people came to feel that softened, slightly faded tones were “just right”.
I think this overlap of aesthetics and reality created “the colour of time that feels distinctly Japanese.”
What kind of values about time exist in your country?
Light & Shadow
Second is how different cultures think about light and shadow. This is actually one of my favourite topics.
When I am travelling through European countries, there are so many moments that really capture my heart – for example, in churches and cathedrals, when coloured light pours through stained glass onto the stone floors and pillars.
In the Bible, phrases like “God is light” and “light shines in the darkness” appear again and again. Maybe because of this, light often gets connected with God and salvation, while darkness tends to be linked with sin and fear.
So for centuries, European church architects have focused on how to bring light into these dark spaces. The interiors aren’t made uniformly bright; they’re kept relatively dark overall so that the shafts of light from windows and stained glass stand out more powerfully. That contrast between deep shadows and these dramatic shafts of light creates a really strong spiritual feeling – almost like light itself is the main character.
On the other hand, traditional Japanese spaces took a different path.
There’s a book I love by Junichiro Tanizaki called In Praise of Shadows. He writes about the idea that beauty doesn’t lie only in the object itself, but in the shadows that gather around it, and in the very slight glow that appears from within that darkness.
Deep eaves, verandas, and sliding doors made of paper, like shōji and fusuma, gently block and filter the light, so the interior is kept intentionally dim. In that soft darkness, you take in the moment when gold leaf, lacquerware, and the gradations of vermilion and ink in picture scrolls don’t glare, but slowly emerge – almost as if they’re breathing through the shadows.
Here, shadow isn’t just empty darkness – it’s an essential partner that completes beauty and colour.
This way of thinking about shadow isn’t just found in temples and shrines. For a long time in Japan, many traditional townhouses and everyday interiors also appreciated having some shade: light softened through paper, polished wood that catches a quiet glow rather than a sharp reflection, and colours that are meant to be enjoyed in half-light rather than under direct glare.
So if we really simplify it:
In many Christian traditions, light stands for God and salvation, and churches often keep the interior relatively dark so that the light feels especially dramatic.
In traditional Japanese aesthetics, shadow itself is given value; beauty comes from the interplay between light and shadow, not just from bright light alone.
I think these different ways of seeing beauty naturally become part of how we feel as we grow up in that culture. So as a Japanese person, whatever it is, I somehow feel calmer when there’s a bit of shadow around.
That’s why I’m really curious. If you visit Japan and step into these more traditional, dimly lit spaces, how does this way of using light and shadow feel to you? And at the same time, in your own culture or where you grew up, how are light and shadow thought about or used?
I’d really love to know.
2. Language
So up until now, we’ve talked about “culture and aesthetics.”
But when it comes to differences in colour perception, it’s not just those abstract values. Even the “words” we use every day also create differences in how colours look.
So here’s a question: In your country, how many colours does a rainbow have?
In Japanese schools, we learn “a rainbow has 7 colours.” But actually, around the world, some cultures count “5 colours,” and there are reports of cultures that see it as 3 to 4 colours, or even 2 colours. It’s because the sense of “where to divide colours” itself differs depending on language and culture.
Physically, a rainbow is a seamless gradient from red to purple. But we draw “lines” in there, labelling sections like “this is red,” “this is orange,” and by dividing it that way, we recognise it as “7 colours” for the first time.
There are thousands of languages in the world, but how many “colour names” each language has and how they divide them is actually pretty different.
And here’s the interesting thing – it’s been pointed out that “colours without clear names” tend to become kind of “blurry” to us.
Of course, this doesn’t mean “you can’t see colours without names.”
It’s more like – whether there’s a word or not affects where you draw boundary lines and what colour you remember it as.
For example, Japanese has one clear example of this.
It’s Japan’s “GO” traffic light.
Physically, that light is “green,” right?
But in Japanese, we still call it “ao shingo” – literally “blue signal.”
This is apparently a leftover from how the Japanese didn’t originally distinguish “blue” and “green” as clearly as we do now.
In old Japanese, there was a time when the green of grass and trees and the blue of the sea and sky were all just called “ao” together.
When there’s only one “word” for it, colours categorised in that word become easier to feel as the same group. That’s kind of the idea.
How many colours were you taught a rainbow has in your country?
3. Eye Colour
So up until now, we’ve talked about “culture” and “language.”
But actually, even in the same culture, even speaking the same language, the image being processed in your brain and in the brain of the person next to you might be different.
That’s the story of our eyes.
Are your eyes black or brown? Or blue or green?
Wouldn’t it be kind of fascinating if the world you see changed a little depending on your eye colour?
Eye colour isn’t just about looks. How well it works as a light shield also changes a lot.
Many people in Asia, Africa, and Central and South America tend to have dark-coloured eyes. With dark eyes, there’s lots of melanin pigment in the iris, which can block some extra light. In camera terms, it’s like having a hood on, so extra light doesn’t get in. When that happens, your view can have slightly higher contrast, and deep shadows may feel a little clearer, especially in strong light.
On the other hand, people with light-colored eyes, like in Northern Europe, have less pigment, so strong light gets in more easily. Your whole view can feel a bit brighter and hazier, especially under intense sunlight.
Have you ever come to Japan, walked into a crazy bright convenience store, and thought, “This is insane”? If your eyes are light-coloured, you might feel this even more strongly than I do. Of course, I can’t change my eyes to test this myself, so I don’t really know for sure – but if it’s true, that’s pretty interesting, right?
Also, separately from that, age and UV rays also affect the world you see through your eyes. This is about the lens – kind of like a camera lens.
This lens is clear when you’re born, but as you age and keep getting exposed to UV rays, it gradually becomes more yellowish. There are individual differences, but some studies suggest that people living in tropical regions near the equator, who get exposed to strong UV rays constantly, tend to have this yellowing happen faster.
When the lens gets yellow, naturally, the colours reaching your eyes change too. Cool colours like blue and purple become harder to see, and overall it shifts towards warmer tones, kind of like looking through a sepia filter.
These changes are thought to affect which colours look clearest, and over time that might be slightly involved in which colours people prefer and choose in daily life in different regions. Of course, other things like religion and history also shape colour culture.
If the person walking with you has a different eye colour, it might be fun to talk about this kind of thing.
4. Light & Air
From here, let’s look at the external elements that create those sensations.
If you’re planning to come to Japan or travel to another country soon, knowing these things will make the world look way more interesting. So please don’t get bored halfway through and stick with me, okay?
First is the most physical part – “air and light.”
A lot of you probably learned this in physics or geography class, so some of you might remember.
The sunlight we see every day looks white or clear, right?
But actually, it’s made up of all kinds of colours mixed together. It might be easier to understand if you imagine it like a “light smoothie.”
When you pass sunlight through a prism – this clear triangular piece of glass – it separates into rainbow colours. So inside white light, all colours like “blue” and “red” are hidden from the start.
But what’s important is that depending on the colour of light, the wavelength is different. To put wavelength in simpler terms, imagine it like different stride lengths when walking.
This ‘difference in stride’ makes a big difference when light travels through the sky.
For light to reach your eyes, it has to pass through this thick layer of air, right? And that air layer is made of molecules – or in simple terms, tons of obstacles.
Blue light has a “narrow stride” and kind of zigzags, so it’s the type of light that easily bumps into those obstacles. Red light, on the other hand, has a “wide stride,” so it doesn’t really catch on those obstacles and can travel way farther.
And what becomes really important here is the “latitude” of where you live.
For example, let’s think about areas close to the equator, like Southeast Asia or Central and South America.
The ground faces the sun head-on, so light drops straight down from directly above at the shortest distance. Because the distance is short, the light doesn’t weaken much and hits the ground with full force.
The “blue light” in it hits the air obstacles and scatters everywhere, so it looks like blue light is pouring down from all over the sky. That’s why the sky in the tropics on clear days with clean air tends to be that intense, vivid blue.
On the other hand, what about high latitude places like the UK or Northern Europe?
Because the Earth is round, the farther north you go, the more the ground becomes like a “steep slope” compared to the sun. So light is always coming in at an angle.
When the distance gets longer, “blue light” with its narrow stride bumps into too many obstacles along the way and scatters sideways before it reaches us directly. But “red light” with its wide stride can travel far.
So the light in Europe, especially when the sun is low, and it’s clear, looks slightly reddish, warm, and somehow nostalgic. Of course, the sky itself is properly blue, but it tends to feel like there’s a faintly white veil over that blue.
Maybe that’s why when I walk the cobblestone streets of Europe, it feels somehow emotionally beautiful, like a scene from a movie.
Isn’t this interesting? Are you okay? Still following me?
Next, the “air” part. This is like – completely opposite things are happening between people in California and people in Japan.
The difference is clearly “humidity.”
Japan, especially in summer, gets humid enough to feel muggy. Japan is surrounded by ocean and gets strongly influenced by warm ocean currents, so it’s a place where moisture easily mixes into the air. Warm, humid air gathers easily, and rain clouds develop easily. Summer here is like living right next to a giant bath.
When there are lots of tiny water particles in the air, the edges of scenery soften a bit, and distant scenery tends to look faintly whitish, like there’s a veil over it. That’s why Japanese landscapes tend to feel somewhat soft and hazy even on clear days.
On the other hand, what about places like California or many Mediterranean coast areas? Especially in summer, there’s this “crisp, clear” season with almost no rain that continues, right? To be honest, I’ve never been to California, but it’s on my list. Anyway, when there are few clouds during the day, and the air is clean, light arrives almost without weakening, shadows are sharp, and the boundaries between colours look really clear.
So the streets of the West Coast and Mediterranean tend to feel like a high-definition world with “really dark shadows and strong colour contrast.”
What’s the place where you live like? Please tell me.
5. Local Materials
And finally, “local materials.”
This is also a big element in how the world looks.
For example, with clothes – even if it’s the same red, silk and cotton give totally different vibes, right? It’s a bit like that.
Before synthetic pigments and mass-produced paints and dyes, people couldn’t just go out and buy ready-made colours, right?
The colours of a place – on buildings, clothes, paintings, ceramics – mostly came from whatever materials were available there, often local earth and plants.
In Japan, because the climate is warm and humid, plants grow really well. So it was natural to take colour mainly from plants, and also from iron-rich soil– things like madder and bengaraベンガラ. A lot of reds ended up softer, slightly brownish or yellow-tinged, like the colour of a sunset.
In very dry regions, like parts of the Middle East and Central and South America, lush plants are harder to grow, so people turned more to stone, earth and certain insects for colour.
In Europe, strong reds often came from mineral pigments like vermilion, and later, intense insect reds such as cochineal arrived through trade, so really vivid reds became common there.
You can see similar patterns with other colours too.
And in Japan, because many of the pigments used could be sourced within Japan itself, its colour culture developed mostly from local materials.
What about other regions?
“For example, in many parts of Africa, red ochre – iron-rich earth from the ground – has long been one important source of colour, alongside plant and sometimes insect dyes. It creates deep, powerful reds often used on bodies, masks and architecture.
And India sat on major trade routes, so many different dyes and pigments could be brought in – natural indigo, turmeric yellows, and later insect-based reds from Central and South America. That history is one reason Indian colour often feels so energetic and layered.“
But is that all? Let’s look at the materials used in buildings.
For example, imagine cityscapes built with stacked stone and brick, like old towns in France and Italy.
We learned that these were the materials chosen, along with that “wish for eternity” at the beginning, right?
Stone and brick are hard, tightly packed materials. Depending on the region, they even add finishes with paints mixed with oil or resin, so an even smoother “shell-like” layer forms on the surface. When strong light hits those materials, it bounces right off that surface, so the landscape tends to have strong contrast with sharp shadows and edges.
On the other hand, we learned that traditional Japanese buildings are built around materials like wooden pillars and beams, earthen walls, and paper for shōji and fusuma – materials that were chosen because of accepting natural disasters and “impermanence,” right?
Rather than firing at high heat or coating with thick paint to make things solid, a lot of finishes just let the materials dry naturally while keeping their texture. For example, when colouring wood, they often paint in a way that soaks in rather than just covering with paint.
As a result, the surface becomes kind of porous – in a state where the materials are “breathing.” Even when light hits it, it gently enters into the wood, soil, and paper, and softly scatters inside.
That’s why spaces surrounded by traditional buildings in Japan tend to look wrapped in this soft, hazy quality overall, even in the same light. I think this is one physical reason for that feeling I had when I came back to Japan.
You can actually see this in a painting, too.
For example, lots of Western paintings layer oil paints on canvas to create a glossy, flat surface, so they bounce light back strongly with a “shine.”
On the other hand, Japanese paintings and ink wash paintings use pigments mixed with water and glue that soak into Japanese paper or silk, creating this matte, soft texture on the surface, and light spreads softly too.
So even with the same light, the thickness and softness of the air they create looks completely different between an oil painting canvas and Japanese painting’s washi paper.
So when I naturally thought, “Japanese paintings really fit well in a traditional Japanese house,” there was also that kind of background. Interesting, right?
Environmental colour and Eye Adaptation
And here’s another really interesting thing.
“Environmental colours” are automatically changing our eyes’ sensitivity. Did you know that?
Human eyes have this function formally called “chromatic adaptation.” If we compare this to a camera feature, it’s like “the brain’s auto white balance.”
Your brain automatically lowers sensitivity to “colours that are all over the place” and tries to balance things “by emphasising the “opposite colour.” This is called a “complementary colour” relationship.”
For example, I said Japan has lots of humidity, and plants grow well. Of course, cities like Tokyo are different, “but when you leave the city a bit, your view is overflowing with “green.” When our eyes get used to this green-filled world, we gradually lower our sensitivity to green. As a result, “red,” which is on the opposite side, can start to feel even more vivid than before” – that’s one way to explain it.
So, at least for me as a Japanese person, I think maybe those red autumn leaves I saw in Kyoto looked so striking not just because of the physical intensity of the colour, but because ‘eyes surrounded by green’ <might> make red feel even stronger.
On the other hand, imagine dry desert areas like the Middle East or Arizona. There are lots of ochre and brownish tones in the ground and buildings, right? What’s the opposite of ochre? It’s blue.
In those environments, “blue,” which is on the opposite side, really stands out visually. Examples include the blue fabric worn by Sahara desert people, blue tiles decorating Middle Eastern mosques, and turquoise from the American Southwest. One way to think about why these feel especially beautiful in those lands is that in a brown world, blue is a colour that really pops.
I find this so interesting.
Harmony vs Contrast
Okay, thanks so much for sticking with me this far.
Finally, let’s look together at how everything we’ve seen connects.
The keywords are “contrast” and “harmony.”
Of course it depends on the person, but from what I’ve seen, and some studies say similar things, people in many Western countries, especially the US, often like stronger, more saturated colours and big contrast. In Japan, we generally seem to feel more at ease with softer, slightly muted palettes, with a bit of white or grey mixed in rather than pure primary colours.
But why did this happen?
Actually, all the elements we’ve looked at so far connect here.
“For example, if I imagine the streets of Southern Europe and the Mediterranean coast that I visited last year, in places like that, you have things like a value system that “praises light,” using stone and brick that reflect light strongly, and dry air making edges look sharp” – all these conditions overlap.
In that kind of environment, pale colours tend to get lost in the background. “So this way of choosing to “intentionally use strong colours and show them through contrast” naturally emerges.”
That’s why when we travel to places like that, we unconsciously want to bring brightly coloured clothes.
On the other hand, in Japan, you have things like a value system that cherishes “harmony,” materials like wood and paper that absorb light and humidity, making scenery look soft – these conditions overlap.
In a landscape wrapped in soft tones overall, if you just use primary colours as they are, sometimes only that part stands out and feels unsettled. So it’s sometimes explained that there’s a tendency to prefer soft colour combinations or slightly muted colours.
So that might be why I tend to wear settled tones in Japan – but actually, I do that everywhere, not just in Japan.
To sum it up very roughly – in lands with strong sunlight and dry air, colours often stand out through “contrast with the environment.” And in regions like Japan with high humidity, where light bleeds easily, colours create this settled feeling by “blending into the scenery.”
Does that make sense as a way to think about it?
Recap
Phew! That was pretty long! I didn’t think it would get this long (laughs).
Finally, let’s recap what we learned together today.
First, I said that when people look at scenery, the things creating differences in how we sense it can be broadly split into two: internal differences that humans have, and external differences like the environment.
Three internal differences were,
First, differences in culture and aesthetics. I talked about whether time is seen as eternal or impermanent, and how light and shadow are treated.
Second, language. I talked about differences in the number and way of dividing colour names, like how many colours you see in a rainbow.
Third, our eyes. Eye colour, the lens that changes due to age and UV rays – how the world looks changes.
And two external differences from the environment:
First, sky and light. Differences in latitude, humidity, and light quality.
Second, materials. Whether the materials you can get in that land are plants or minerals, wood or stone.
And finally, we saw how when all of these overlap, even preferences in “how to combine colours” change.
All these different elements come together to create the world we see.
It might be because I’m Japanese, but when I’m surrounded by Japan’s soft colours, I feel more settled. And when I go to countries with strong contrast, I feel like my brain is getting really stimulated by touching a world I’ve never experienced before.
What about you?
One of the cool things about travelling isn’t just seeing “beautiful scenery.” I think it’s that by being in different light, touching different materials, and connecting with people who have different aesthetics, the way you see the world itself gradually gets richer.
If you know stories like today’s, you might be able to love the harmonious beauty of Japan that kind of bleeds on rainy days even more than before. If you know cultures that prefer “strong contrast,” instead of just avoiding strong sunlight as “harsh,” you might be able to enjoy the drama of shadows and colours that the light creates.
Maybe our “aesthetic sense” that I talked about last time got polished <a little> more again today.
On my channel, I share what I’m learning for my future creative work like this, and I share kind of the source of inspiration – like how the projects I’ll create in the future are being born, through what process and from what kind of sensations.
I really want to share this journey with you all, so I’d be really happy if you could subscribe to the channel and sign up for the newsletter.
That one click of your subscribe button becomes a big step toward the projects I want to make happen in the future. I’d really appreciate it.
Also, I’m basically just talking from the limited perspective of a Japanese artist who’s been in Europe for a long time, so if you’re in a different part of the world or are an expert on this topic, please share your knowledge in the comments.
I hope this channel can be a place where we all learn together, not just me talking one-way.
And the next video has content that’s even more interesting to me personally.
I visited someone who’s constantly thinking about what we learned today. A plant-dye craftsman living in Kyoto. Building on what we talked about today, let’s learn together about his thoughts on colour and his values as a craftsman.
Alright then, see you next time.
