The most honored corner
In the main reception room of a traditional Japanese house, one part of a wall is set back into a shallow recess with a floor slightly raised above the surrounding mats. This is the tokonoma. It is not for storage or use. Its purpose is display: a place where something worth looking at is shown, framed by the recess and set apart from the rest of the room.
Few modern homes have one, and where they do it is often in a single mat-floored guest room. But the idea remains influential, and it explains much about how Japanese interiors treat objects: rather than filling every wall, a house shows one or two things carefully.
Origins
The alcove is generally linked to a style of residential architecture that developed in the Muromachi period and was refined in later ones, in which a room used for study and reception included built-in features for display and writing. Priests and warrior families displayed Buddhist paintings and prized objects in such spaces. Over time the form spread to tea rooms and to homes of townspeople and farmers who could afford a good room. Details varied across periods and regions, and what is described here is a general picture.
What is shown
A typical display has three parts, though no rule requires all of them.
- A hanging scroll. The scroll is mounted on the back wall and shows a painting or calligraphy. It may be a landscape, a flower, a poem or a short phrase of a few characters. The topic of hanging scrolls is covered separately; here the point is its role as the center of the composition.
- A flower arrangement. Flowers are placed on the floor of the alcove or on a small stand, often in a simple vessel of ceramic, bamboo or metal. They are not a bouquet but a restrained arrangement of a few stems, sometimes in the manner of ikebana flower arranging.
- An object. This may be a ceramic piece, an incense burner, a small sculpture or a seasonal item, placed so it does not compete with the scroll.
One post at the side of the alcove, the tokobashira, is sometimes left in a natural wood form, with bark partly visible, to create a contrast with the surrounding polished wood. In tea-room design, a post like this adds a deliberate rustic note.
How a display is composed
The composition is usually asymmetrical, with items arranged so there is a balance between them without perfect mirroring. The scroll’s subject, the flower and the object should relate to one another and to the season or occasion, but not repeat each other. For example, a scroll showing a moon might be paired with a few fall grasses, while the object is a plain vessel that lets the flowers stand out. A good display leaves a great deal of empty wall, because the empty space is part of it, an idea closely related to the concept of ma.
Choices are rarely about expense. A simple branch in a bamboo section, a plain scroll and a modest bowl can make a fine display if they fit together. This preference for quiet suggestion over display of wealth relates to wabi-sabi, a taste for modest, aged and unforced things.
Changing with the seasons
A main reason for the alcove is that its contents change. A household or host might change the scroll and flowers according to the season, the month, a festival or the visit of a guest. In the first days of the year, a display may reflect New Year customs, with auspicious items. In early spring it might include early blossoms, in summer a cool-looking painting of water or a pale vessel, in fall leaves or grasses, and in winter evergreens or a snow scene.
Seasonal words from poetry often guide these choices, as the seasonal words used in haiku give a shared vocabulary of what belongs to each time of year. The change also follows the yearly calendar of festivals and observances. In this way the alcove acts as a small marker of the passing of time within the house, so that anyone entering the room can tell the season without looking outside.
For visitors to a tea event, the alcove display is often the first thing the host has chosen for them, and guests are expected to look at it with care. Within the Japanese tea ceremony, the scroll is often regarded as the most important item of the setting, expressing the theme of the gathering.
Manners around the alcove
Because the tokonoma is a place of honor, certain habits are observed.
- The seat nearest it, the kamiza, is traditionally offered to the guest of honor or to the person of highest standing, and the host sits farther away.
- People do not walk on the alcove floor, sit in it or place bags or personal belongings there.
- Guests may admire the display, often with a brief bow, and ask about it if invited to.
- The host does not clutter it. Items are changed carefully, and they may be put away safely when the season ends.
These customs differ among households, and today many are applied loosely.
A lasting idea
Even where no formal alcove exists, people create small displays: a shelf at the entrance with a single seasonal flower, or a niche in a hallway with a small figure. The tokonoma teaches that a single well-chosen object, shown with space around it and renewed with the seasons, can be enough to give a room character.