Wabi-cha

Last updated April 22, 2019

Wabi-cha (わび茶; 侘茶; 侘び茶), is a style of Japanese tea ceremony particularly associated with Sen no Rikyū, Takeno Jōō and its originator Murata Jukō. Wabi-cha emphasizes simplicity. The term came into use in the Edo period, prior to which it was known as wabi-suki (侘数寄), suki meaning "artistic inclination", and "wabi" meaning 'forlorn'.

Japanese tea ceremony Traditional Japanese ceremony

The Japanese tea ceremony, also called the Way of Tea, is a Japanese cultural activity involving the ceremonial preparation and presentation of matcha (抹茶), powdered green tea.

Sen no Rikyū, also known simply as Rikyū, is considered the historical figure with the most profound influence on chanoyu, the Japanese "Way of Tea", particularly the tradition of wabi-cha. He was also the first to emphasize several key aspects of the ceremony, including rustic simplicity, directness of approach and honesty of self. Originating from the Sengoku period and the Azuchi–Momoyama period, these aspects of the tea ceremony persist. Rikyū is known by many names; for convenience this article will refer to him as Rikyū throughout.

Takeno Jōō was a master of the tea ceremony and a well-known merchant during the Sengoku period of the 16th century in Japan. His name has come down in Japanese cultural history because he followed Murata Jukō as an early proponent of wabi-cha, and was chanoyu teacher to Sen no Rikyū.

History

By the latter years of the Muromachi period, tea ceremony had become widespread, with a preference for expensive wares of Chinese origin known as karamono. Wabi-cha evolved as part of a movement to appreciate local wares and simpler styles.

The Muromachi period is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate, which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi shōgun, Ashikaga Takauji, two years after the brief Kenmu Restoration (1333–36) of imperial rule was brought to a close. The period ended in 1573 when the 15th and last shogun of this line, Ashikaga Yoshiaki, was driven out of the capital in Kyoto by Oda Nobunaga.

China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia and the world's most populous country, with a population of around 1.404 billion. Covering approximately 9,600,000 square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), it is the third- or fourth-largest country by total area. Governed by the Communist Party of China, the state exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities, and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.

Generally, three main figures are credited with the development of the wabi-cha aesthetic form of chanoyu: first, Murata Jukō; then, Takeno Jōō; and finally, Sen no Rikyū.

Rikyū cited two poems from the Shin Kokin Wakashū poetry anthology of the early thirteenth century, as exemplifying his wabi aesthetic. One, a favorite of Takeno Jōō's, is by Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241):

The Shin Kokin Wakashū, also known in abbreviated form as the Shin Kokinshū (新古今集) or even conversationally as the Shin Kokin, is the eighth imperial anthology of waka poetry compiled by the Japanese court, beginning with the Kokin Wakashū circa 905 and ending with the Shinshokukokin Wakashū circa 1439. The name can be literally translated as "New Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems" and bears an intentional resemblance to that of the first anthology. Together with the Man'yōshū and the Kokinshū, the Shin Kokinshū is widely considered to be one of the three most influential poetic anthologies in Japanese literary history. It was commissioned in 1201 by the retired emperor Go-Toba, who established a new Bureau of Poetry at his Nijō palace with eleven Fellows, headed by Fujiwara no Yoshitsune, for the purpose of conducting poetry contests and compiling the anthology. Despite its emphasis on contemporary poets, the Shin Kokinshū covered a broader range of poetic ages than the Kokinshū, including ancient poems that the editors of the first anthology had deliberately excluded. It was officially presented in 1205, on the 300th anniversary of the completion of the Kokinshū.

Fujiwara Sadaie (藤原定家), better-known as Fujiwara no Teika, was a Japanese poet, critic, calligrapher, novelist, anthologist, scribe, and scholar of the late Heian and early Kamakura periods. His influence was enormous, and he is counted as among the greatest of Japanese poets, and perhaps the greatest master of the waka form – an ancient poetic form consisting of five lines with a total of 31 syllables.

Casting wide my gaze,
Neither flowers
Nor scarlet leaves:
A bayside hovel of reeds
In the autumn dusk.

The other, in which Rikyū found particular appeal, is by Fujiwara Ietaka (1158–1237):

Fujiwara no Ietaka was an early Kamakura period Japanese waka poet. Several of his poems are included in the Shin Kokin Wakashū. He was related by marriage to Jakuren, which made him strongly connected to the network of poets of the time. He was a pupil to Fujiwara no Shunzei.

Show them who wait
Only for flowers
There in the mountain villages:
Grass peeks through the snow,
And with it, spring.

At the core of Rikyū's aesthetic was the tea room smaller than 4.5 tatami mats. Rikyū sought to mold chanoyu into a spiritual path. His radical simplification of the tea-room interior, his reduction of space to the bare minimum needed for "a sitting", was the most practical way of focusing tea practice on the communion of host and guests. This is seen in the one extant tea house attributed to his design, the tea house called Taian (待庵), located at Myōkian temple in Yamazaki, Kyoto, which has been designated by the Japanese government as a National Treasure (kokuhō). His achievement represents the culmination of the wabi aesthetic born of the contemplative awareness of the relationship between people and things. With Rikyū, wabi took on its most profound and paradoxical meaning: a purified taste in material things as a medium for human interaction transcending materialism.^[1]

Rikyū also began designing his own tea wares, sometimes having them made by local craftsmen. Raku ware tea bowls originated from Rikyū having the tile maker named Raku Chōjirō create tea bowls for him.^[2] He even created his own objects to use in the tea room, including flower containers made of bamboo he cut himself.

Raku ware is a type of Japanese pottery traditionally used in Japanese tea ceremonies, most often in the form of chawan tea bowls. It is traditionally characterised by being hand-shaped rather than thrown, fairly porous vessels, which result from low firing temperatures, lead glazes and the removal of pieces from the kiln while still glowing hot. In the traditional Japanese process, the fired raku piece is removed from the hot kiln and is allowed to cool in the open air. The familiar technique of placing the ware in a container filled with combustible material is not a traditional Raku practice.

Tanaka Chōjirō (長次郎) (1516-?1592) is distinguished as the first generation in the Raku family line of potters. According to historical documents he was the son of one Ameya, who is said to have emigrated to Japan from Korea. Historical evidence shows that he produced ridge tiles for Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Jurakudai palace in 1574. There is a historical document reporting that in 1584, Toyotomi Hideyoshi presented him with a seal inscribed with the character 楽, raku, and with this "Raku" was adopted as the family name. He worked at one time for Sen no Rikyū, the master of tea, at whose request he created teabowls to be used in chanoyu, the Japanese tea ceremony. Extant records of the use, at the time, of the tea bowls that he produced for Rikyū describe them as "tea bowls of the Sōeki form", Sōeki being the name that Rikyū was then generally known by. The bowls attracted attention for their beauty and refinement. Chōjirō produced bowls that were either entirely red or entirely black glazed soft pottery, simple and without decoration, which were meant to reflect wabi ideals.

A chashitsu in Japanese tradition is an architectural space designed to be used for tea ceremony (chanoyu) gatherings

Modern wabi-cha

Ironically, in modern times achieving the aura of rustic simplicity demanded by wabi-cha can be an expensive endeavour. Even the simple, cheap items used by Rikyū and his followers have gained both status and value: authentic Raku tea bowls, for example, are among the most expensive available today, and among the most sought after. Similarly, creating the look of simplicity promoted by Rikyū for tea rooms can also be very expensive.^{[ citation needed ]}

Related Research Articles

In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete". It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence, specifically impermanence, suffering and emptiness or absence of self-nature.

A tea ceremony is a ritualized form of making tea practiced in Asian culture by the Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Indian, Vietnamese and Taiwanese. The tea ceremony, literally translated as "way of tea" in Japanese, "etiquette for tea" or "tea rite" in Korean, and "art of tea" in Chinese, is a cultural activity involving the ceremonial preparation and presentation of tea. The Japanese tea ceremony is better known, and was influenced by the Chinese tea culture during ancient and medieval times, starting in the 9th century when tea was first introduced to Japan from China. The Vietnamese tea ceremony, also influenced by its Chinese counterpart, is only performed during weddings and other religious rituals. One can also refer to the whole set of rituals, tools, gestures, etc. used in such ceremonies as tea culture. All of these tea ceremonies and rituals contain "an adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday life", as well as refinement, an inner spiritual content, humility, restraint and simplicity "as all arts that partake the extraordinary, an artistic artificiality, abstractness, symbolism and formalism" to one degree or another.

Shigaraki ware (信楽焼) is a type of stoneware pottery made in Shigaraki area, Japan. The kiln is one of the Six Ancient Kilns in Japan. Although figures representing the Tanuki are a popular product included as Shigaraki ware, the kiln and local pottery tradition has a long history.

The history of tea in Japan began as early as the 9th century, when the first known references to tea were made in Japanese records. Tea became a drink of the religious classes in Japan when Japanese priests and envoys sent to China to learn about its culture brought tea to Japan. The Buddhist monks Kūkai and Saichō may have been the first to bring tea seeds to Japan. The first form of tea brought from China was probably brick tea. Tea became a drink of the royal classes when Emperor Saga, the Japanese emperor, encouraged the growth of tea plants. Seeds were imported from China, and cultivation in Japan began.

Mizuya is the term for the preparation area in a Japanese tea house (chashitsu) or attached to any venue used for the Japanese tea ceremony. For instance, the area used for preparation during outdoor tea ceremonies is also called the mizuya. The term mizuya can also refer to purificatory fonts at shrines and temples, as well as to storage cupboards for use in kitchens. This article, however, focuses on the tea ceremony mizuya.

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Chabana is a generic term for the arrangement of flowers put together for display at a Japanese tea ceremony, and also for the wide variety of plants conventionally considered as appropriate material for such use, as witnessed by the existence of such encyclopedic publications as the Genshoku Chabana Daijiten [All-color encyclopedia of chabana]. The method of arranging the flowers is according to the nageire, or thrown in, style of flower arranging. In turn, nageire is recognized as a certain stylistic category of Kadō, the Japanese "Way of Flowers". These all developed from ikebana, which had its origin in early Buddhist flower offerings (kuge). Chabana, however, refers specifically to the flower display in the room or space for chadō, and though it fundamentally is a form of ikebana, it comprises a genre unto its own.

Murata Jukō Founder of the Japanese tea ceremony

Murata Jukō is known in Japanese cultural history as the founder of the Japanese tea ceremony, in that he was the early developer of the wabi-cha style of tea enjoyment employing native Japanese implements. His name may also be pronounced Murata Shukō.

Hechikan was a 16th-century Japanese tea connoisseur and poet from Kyoto.

Furuichi Chōin (1452–1508) was a minor Japanese lord and cha-no-yu aficionado during the Sengoku period. A disciple of Murata Jukō, he was the recipient of Jukō's treatise on the tea ceremony, Kokoro no fumi. He also received the Shinkei Sōzu Teikin, an essay on the composition of renga poetry, from Inawashiro Kensai.

Kaiseki (懐石) or kaiseki-ryōri (懐石料理) is a traditional multi-course Japanese dinner. The term also refers to the collection of skills and techniques that allow the preparation of such meals and is analogous to Western haute cuisine.

Ueda Sōko-ryū (上田宗箇流) is a cultural aesthetic practice, or tradition, of Japanese tea ceremony that originated within the samurai class of feudal Japan. The tradition is commonly called the Ueda Sōko Ryū or Ueda Ryū. The founder from whom the tradition takes its name was Sengoku period warlord Ueda Sōko. The customs, etiquette and values of the samurai are woven throughout all aspects of the tradition's practice of chanoyu, a practice that has continued unbroken for over 400 years.

The Golden Tea Room was a portable gilded chashitsu constructed during the 16th century Azuchi–Momoyama period for the Japanese regent Lord Toyotomi Hideyoshi's tea ceremonies. The original room is lost, but a number of reconstructions have been made.

Ueda Sōko (上田宗箇) (1563–1650) was a warlord who lived during the Momoyama and early Edo Periods. He is best known for founding the Ueda Sōko-ryū, a warrior class school of Japanese tea ceremony from Hiroshima. Ueda Sōko went by the name Satarō (佐太郎) in his younger days and later Shigeyasu (重安). He received his Zen practitioner's name of Chikuin (竹隠) by the 111th patriarch of Daitoku-ji, Shunoku Sōen. Today his death plaque is enshrined at the Sangen-in sub-temple of Daitoku-ji, beside that of his long time teacher in the Way of Tea, Furuta Oribe. Sōko was held in high esteem by Toyotomi Hideyoshi for military exploits and as a tea master. In the Battle of Sekigahara (1600), Sōko sided with Toyotomi's Western Army and was thus defeated. During the Siege of Osaka Summer Campaign (1615), Sōko fought with Asano Yoshinaga on the Tokugawa side, and for this Sōko was given a pardon by Tokugawa Ieyasu. In 1619, the Tokogawa shogunate assigned the Geishū Domain to Asano Nagaakira and Sōko relocated to Hiroshima serving Nagaakira. Sōko was given a fief of 17,000 koku of rice in west Hiroshima and the role of Chief Retainer of the Geishū Domain under Asano.

References

↑ Yasuhiko Murai, tr. Alfred Birnbaum, "A Brief History of Tea in Japan", pp. 21–23. Chapter One in Sōshitsu Sen XV, ed., Chanoyu: The Urasenke Tradition of Tea. Weatherhill, 1988. ISBN 0-8348-0212-0.
↑ JapaneseRikyū Daijiten (Rikyū Encyclopedia). Tankosha, 1989. ISBN 4-473-01110-0

External links

Article about the history of chanoyu and wabi-cha, and the characteristics of the Tai-an designed by Sen no Rikyū, by a Japanese professor of architecture

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[1] Yasuhiko Murai, tr. Alfred Birnbaum, "A Brief History of Tea in Japan", pp. 21–23. Chapter One in Sōshitsu Sen XV, ed., Chanoyu: The Urasenke Tradition of Tea. Weatherhill, 1988. ISBN 0-8348-0212-0.

[2] JapaneseRikyū Daijiten (Rikyū Encyclopedia). Tankosha, 1989. ISBN 4-473-01110-0