Secrets of the beauty of Himeji Castle


Himeji Castle is one of the first world culture heritage sites selected in Japan and it has many foreign visitors.


Himeji Castle, of course, is a fortification to protect ourselves. It has weapon-rooms with walls for storing spears and waiting rooms for samurais in the main tower. And it has stone walls which are one of the characteristics of Japanese castles for guarding against an army.


One of interesting things for visitors is its powers, but what attracts many foreign visitors may be the beauty of the castle. So I will try to go deep into the beauty of the castle.




The large size of the castle


Himeji Castle looks magnificent and it is the largest remaining castle with the main tower in Japan. Historically speaking there were many larger castles than Himeji Castle but this castle has a reason for the large size excepting the appearance of power and the largeness of staff.


Himeji is the key place between western regions of Japan and Kyoto. Himeji had had castles or fortifications on the same land before the current castle in early times in the 17th century. One of the historical lords was Hideyoshi Toyotomi who was the lord of Osaka Castle. He built a former Himeji Castle before the current castle for conquering western regions and monitoring activities of western lords. He succeeded in the conquest of western lords and he moved to his new Osaka Castle after the decisive battle with Mitsuhide Akechi.


Tokugawa Bakufu, which won the battle of Sekigahara against the Toyotomi Family lords after the death of Hideyoshi, dispatched Terumasa Ikeda for monitoring western lords who had sympathy with Toyotomi family. So then he began to construct the new Himeji Castle and the following lords after Terumasa added their ideas and complexity and completed the current castle. The then land-size of the castle with three large moats and a castle town in the Edo Era was far larger than that of the current castle with the one moat. You can look at the small model of the largest castle in the main tower.

The white color of the castle


The second characteristic of the castle is its white color. The reason of the white color might have been attributed to the idea of Terumasa. Many other castles before this white castle were black, of course black showed off the power. Terumasa might have thought about the next era of peace after the civil wars. He might have concluded that it was necessary to monitor western lords excepting the power, and it was the softness in current speaking, and the beauty.


Japan has the method of white wall of plaster “shikkui”. Many black castles have black walls which were covered by black lacquer on white plaster walls. So it is easy to make white walls. Rather, the characteristic of the white color is in the roofs of the castle. Those are different from many roofs of other castles and are made of gray tiles and plaster. The plaster is used to reinforce the strength between tiles and prevent leakage in reality but it might be used to reinforce the white color of the roofs in artificial eyes. Then Himeji Castle is said to be similar to a white heron.

The sensibility of the beauty of imperfection


In Japanese esthetics there is the sensibility of the beauty of imperfection. This sensibility organized in the Heian period (794-1185), was strengthened by Zen thought of the sensibility of the beauty of subtraction, and finally was embedded in Japanese culture by the thinking of tea ceremonies in the civil wars.


Look at the picture above of a green tea cup. It was broken and was repaired with gold. It is an example of the sensibility of the beauty of imperfection.


The current Himeji Castle has hidden appearances of the sensibility of the beauty of imperfection. Remember the first picture and look at it again. The main tower looks to have a bilateral symmetry, but if you look at it closely it isn’t bilaterally symmetric (the wall of the right-side from the center point of the first floor on the stone wall is shorter than that of the left-side).


Next, look at this picture closely. It was taken from beneath the main tower. The directions of each corner of the left roof and the right roof are subtly different.


You may not perceive what I said easily. My Australian friend couldn’t perceive them at one time. When he confirmed these imperfection he was taken aback, and he said that it might have been mistaken jokingly. Unfortunately, there is no note that it was made with the sensibility of the beauty of imperfection, however, it is no doubt that these imperfections accumulated a deep essence of the beauty of Himeji Castle.


Despite of the facility of a fortification Himeji Castle is beautiful, moreover, it is imperfect and unstable. It is very intriguing!

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