Style guides

The tokonoma: one picture at a time

Many traditional Japanese rooms have an alcove for one picture. Not a gallery wall, not a shelf of things: one picture, chosen for now.

What a tokonoma is

A tokonoma is a shallow, slightly raised alcove in a traditional Japanese reception room. It usually holds a hanging scroll and a simple flower arrangement, sometimes an object such as a piece of pottery. The alcove is the room’s place of honour: by custom the most important guest is seated with their back to it.

The picture changes with the season

What hangs in the tokonoma is not permanent. Scrolls and flowers are changed for the season or the occasion, and the rest are stored away. The pleasure is in the choosing, and in seeing a familiar room look different.

Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo is a ready-made calendar for this: the series is arranged by spring, summer, autumn and winter. Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake sits in the summer section; Hiroshige placed Fireworks at Ryōgoku and Maple Trees at Mama among the autumn views.

How to borrow the idea

1. Choose one wall. A short wall, a niche or the space beside a window works well. It does not need to be big; it needs to be calm.
2. Hang one print, nothing else. Keep the wall around it empty, so the picture has room. Add one low object beneath it if you like: a vase with a single branch, a bowl, a stack of two books.
3. Swap it with the seasons. Even changing it twice a year makes the room feel new. Keep the others flat in an archival sleeve or a portfolio, away from sunlight.
4. Use the same frame size. If all the prints in the rotation share one frame size, a swap takes a minute and the hook never moves.

Why it suits small homes

One picture asks very little of a room. In a small flat, a single well-chosen print on a quiet wall often does more than several smaller ones competing for attention (one large print or several?).