Session 21: Eastern Hills culture, Sen Rikyū's "wabi-cha" (wabi-style tea ceremony)

Topics

❖ Eastern Hills culture, late 15th c. (Shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimasa, Silver Pavilion)
❖ Events related to the advent of the tea ceremony as we know it today (linked-verse master Shinkei's "chill" and Sesshu's sumi-e)
❖ Sen Rikyū, tea master and founder of the modern Japanese tea ceremony
❖ aesthetic term: sabi & wabi

Thoughts—read before class, revisit for tests

As a pathway for appreciation of artistic expression, I consider both yūgen and sabi-wabi as truly remarkable. However, as an artistic expression that, on the one hand is born of the synthesis of ideas and, on the other, led to changes in multiple arts, while Nō drama is outstanding in this way, perhaps the wabi-style chanoyu of Sen Rikyū is unrivaled in terms of premodern Japan. Wabicha is the result of Buddhist-based ideas like "thusness" and total commitment in practice, linked-verse poetics working with ideas such as "chill" (hie), "michi" (Way, 道) concepts that the expert practice of a single art leads to deep understanding of a more universal nature, and a long tendency for aesthetic ideals to provide ethical behavior guidelines. Sen Rikyū's vision of the tea ceremony had enormous influence on ikebana (flower arranging), cermanics (especially raku ware and Oribe ware), kaiseki ryori (traditional Japanese haute-cuisine 会席料理), architecture (sukiya 数寄屋), tea garden design (roji 路地), at least.

Wabi is related to sabi and we treat the two as inter-connected. For the purposes of this class, anyway, I don't think it is all that productive to spend energy trying to sort this relationship out. Like sabi, wabi emphasizes the plain, simple, undecorated (including imperfect and assymetrical or irregular) with overtones of age and loneliness or desolation or dessication. In this series of lectures I treat wabi as associated with tea and sabi as associated with Matsuo Bashō but the notion of sabi preexists both of these men and is already important before their lifetimes.

Required—to be completed for today's session

✓ Review the chart giving the layout of the Northern and Eastern Hills Periods (bSpace, PDF)
✓ Chanoyu basics (bSpace, PPT)
✓ Chanoyu early tea masters (bSpace, PDF)
✓ Chanoyu Rikyu (bSpace, PPT)
✓ Sabi poems (bSpace, PDF) and Sabi-wabi poems (bSpace, PPT)
✓ Sabi-wabi contemplations (bSpace, PDF)
✓ Sabi-wabi graphic (bSpace, PDF) This is to help consolidate and organize the thoughts presented in the "Sabi-wabi contemplations" reading. For all the sabi assignments, they are relevant to the discussion of Basho in following lectures but are listed here. Understanding sabi-wabi is hermenuetical — read, observe/apply in various situations, reread. This is probably the most difficult concept presented in this class. Please do not simplify it to "rustic beauty" but rather keep in mind its Buddhist origins, its miyabi element, and its heritage to linked-verse with notions such as "chill".
✓ Kitagawa on Japanese Buddhism characteristics (bSpace, PDF) This two paragraph PDF might help establish the link between Buddhist "thusness" and sabi-wabi.

Multimedia notes

❖ I showed paintings by the sumi-e / suiboku artist Sesshu.

Links

⇢ None.

Other

There is a PDF on bSpace the relates the events of Northern Hill culture No drama and elements supporting the development of wabicha during Eastern Hill culture titled Northern and Eastern Hills culture. It might help consolidate information and it does give a visual representation of the chronology of these two cultural high points.

Other optional readings for those interested are Shinkei on Chill (Hirota) (bSpace, PDF), three powerpoints, Wabicha 01, 02 & 03 (all on bSpace, PPT) and readings on Sen Rikyu (Sen) (bSpace, PDF).

Terms and such mentioned this day that are not otherwise in an obvious place on the web site, the powerpoints, the assigned reading, etc. (to help with capturing items mentioned, perhaps quickly, in class, not for test purposes)

Ashikaga Yorimasa is the Eastern Hills culture shogun.

Spelling and dates for all tea masters is on the "early tea masters" pdf.

sabi 寂, wabi 詫, hie (chill) 冷, yase (gaunt) 痩, chanoyu (water for tea) 茶湯，Sumi-e (ink-painting 墨絵), bokuga (墨画), suibokuga (water/ink painting 水墨画)