Dwelling in Atmosphere: Reflections on the Intimate Home
A friend recently gave me a copy of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. One line stayed with me:
“Your house shall not be an anchor but a mast.”
It’s true, we want our homes to carry and propel us forward. Yet I don’t believe that desire is incompatible with a wish for our homes to gently steady and ground us. Though perhaps the interior designer in me has taken Gibran’s words a little literally and no such binary was intended. I imagine what he meant was that home, whether physical or internal, should never weigh us down, but serve as a kind of spine: strong, supple and quietly present as we navigate our own course.
What this means in practice is deeply personal. But I might venture that it has little to do with perfection, and more to do with spaces that offer calm, repose, and gently stir something essential within us. Often, it’s precisely, and perhaps paradoxically, a certain softness that allows us to exhale, regenerate, and gather strength.
This appreciation for beauty and atmosphere that embraces subtlety, patina and depth is explored in Jun’ichirō Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows, a small masterpiece of Eastern aesthetic philosophy that has also been on my recent reading list. Tanizaki not-so-slyly critiques the 20th century Western preoccupation with polish, glitz and gleam. I’ll admit I’m partial to a little of all three from time to time, but I find myself increasingly drawn to greater nuance, quietness, and shadow— or at least to a finer balance between the dynamism of bolder aesthetics and the nuance of rooms that contain more stillness in presence.
Where Gibran speaks of the soul’s longing and Tanizaki speaks of the eye’s emotional undercurrent, I feel both point towards a similar sense of value, engagement, and perception.
And so, a few reflections to round off these musings. Where Gibran reminds us of the sacredness of space, Tanizaki speaks of the sacredness of shadow- not darkness, but the half-lit, the veiled, the flickering: a lacquer bowl gleaming softly in candlelight, a dimly lit corridor, not neglected but respected. Light, here, is tender rather than total; spaces unfold in layers, with lamplight, shaded sconces, and quiet corners left indistinct so the room may breathe.
Both writers honour the imperfect and the genuine. For me, this evokes the handmade and the alive— homes that allow objects to age, soften, and gather memory: unlacquered brass, the softness of an antique timber table, linen that creases. These carry time and intimacy, reminding us that home is not a showroom, but a living organism.
Tanizaki writes of opalescent, milky jades and hues softened by shadow, chalky whites, warm clays, moss greens, woodsmoke greys- colours that invite you closer and slowly unfold. And then there is silence: atmosphere found in what is not said or seen but can still be felt— dappled light filtered through gauzy voile, an alcove with a single painting, a quiet nook where shadow plays with light.
Both Gibran and Tanizaki remind us that we often yearn for something beyond aneasthetising comfort and surface perfection, a kind of felt truth. In our homes, these are the rooms that welcome quietness as well as celebration; that hold us and allow us simply to be. To create an intimate home is not to follow rules, but to listen, to one's senses and one’s instincts, allowing space for both the shadows and the light. Not an anchor, but a mast.
