Japanese Tea Ceremony
An understanding of the Tea Ceremony reveals some of the reasons why raku ware became so highly revered. While Westerners may think of tea as a nourishing beverage, for the Japanese, Tea is an important social ritual, according to Herbert Plutschow in "An Anthropological Perspective on the Japanese Tea Ceremony." Depending on the times, Tea functioned differently--during struggles for military dominance, it created peace; during peace, it confirmed the social and political order. The ritual of Tea is a form of communication that helps to unite diverse people, and under Rikyu it emphasized equality of men. The ceremony takes place in a teahouse, a "sacred" place, that separates man from everyday life. Tea utensils, i.e., raku bowls, raku water containers, are considered works of art rather than just normal culinary tools because they symbolize the communion between men and the sacred. Without these symbolic utensils, Tea could not be performed. And that's what Tea is--a performance art. The high economic value attached to raku tea ware is due not to its method of creation, but to its symbolism. Ironically, the high economic value of raku (some tea bowls are valued over $100,000) is a result of wabi, an esthetic of poverty, that the tea master Rikyu advocated, preferring crude, irregularly shaped, even cracked utensils. Fostering equality, Rikyu advocated unpretentious beauty that even the commoner could appreciate. An overview of the Tea Ceremony will shed light on the importance of raku bowls.
Tea Ceremony
Street Tea Sellers
in Tokyo National Museum