The creation of Akari represents both continuity and a new beginning within Noguchi's work. As light sculptures Akari develop the sculptural use of illumination that Noguchi had first proposed in 1933 for his unrealized Musical Weathervane, and that he had brought to fruition with his Lunar sculptures and interiors during the next decade. As home furnishings Akari extend the domestic application of sculptural principles that Noguchi had advanced with his biomorphic furniture of the 1940s. But those first Akari also stand at the beginning of Noguchi's reintegration with Japan, an essential element of his attempt to establish some sort of Japanese identity in the land of his father. The history of Akari is one of technical and sculptural development, but it also is part of Noguchi's reclaiming a cultural heritage that he would merge with Western modernism. The culmination of this process was to be the great basalt and granite sculptures of the artist's last years.