Rediscovering Rikyu and the beginnings of the Japanese tea ceremony / Herbert Plutschow.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Plutschow, Herbert E., 1939-2010.

Contributor:

Nick Malgieri Culinary Archive and Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Culinary Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sen, Rikyū, 1521 or 1522-1591.

Sen, Rikyū.

Tea masters--Japan--Biography.

Tea masters.

Japanese tea ceremony--History.

Japanese tea ceremony.

History.

Japan.

Genre:

Biographies.

Penn Provenance:

Malgieri, Nick (donor) (Malgieri Collection copy)

Physical Description:

6 unnumbered pages, 226 pages, 8 unnumbered pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

[Folkestone, Kent] : Global Oriental, [2003[.]

Summary:

Rediscovering Rikyu presents the first comprehensive, book-length study of the celebrated Japanese tea master Rikyu (1522-91), considered the father of the Japanese Tea Ceremony (cha-no-yu). For the first time, Rikyu's tea is considered as a profoundly important political as well as a socio-religious ritual in response to the dramatic changes taking place in the country at large: the hundred-year civil war -- Sengoku or Warring States period -- was finally coming to an end and the process of political unification under the strong military leadership of Oda Nobunaga (1534-82) and Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-98) had begun. A key focus of the book is the author's research into why Rikyu's tragic suicide was a necessary outcome of the emerging conflict between ritual, art and politics. The study also provides remarkable insights into a sixteenth-century Japanese sense of beauty commonly called wabi -- a simple, often austere beauty displayed in tea to unite host and guests as equals. In addition, Rediscovering Rikyu provides new and interesting insight into what links Rikyu's wabi tea with Zen Buddhism and ultimately to ritual and the state.

Contents:

Introduction. Aims of the book ; The sources : fact and fiction ; The taste of tea

The setting for tea. Tea as ritual ; Tea and China ; Daoism ; Zen Buddhism; Tea as an aesthetic ; Politics and the arts ; Tea architecture and gardening ; Tea utensils ; Merchants' tea ; Rikyu's predecessors

Rikyu's life and thought. Rikyu's ancestors ; Rikyu's youth ; Rikyu under Oda Nobunaga ; Rikyu under Toyotomi Hideyoshi ; Rikyu's death

Rikyu's tea. Rikyu's philosophy ; Rikyu's aesthetics ; Rikyu's tea-huts and gardens ; Rikyu's utensils ; Simplified procedures ; Rikyu's food ; Rikyu's flowers

Rikyu's disciples. Hosokawa Sansai ; Takayama Ukon ; Shibayama Kenmotsu ; Seta Kamon ; Makimura Hyobu ; Gamo Ujisato ; Furuta Oribe

Rikyu's legacy. Rikyu and Suguwara no Michizane ; Rikyu's deification ; Tea after Rikyu

Rikyu's displays.

Notes:

"First published in 2003 by Global Oriental ..."

Includes bibliographical references (2009-216) and index.

Local Notes:

Nick Malgieri Culinary Archive and Library copy presented to the Penn Libraries in 2015 by Nick Malgieri.

Malgieri Collection copy: dust jacket retained.

ISBN:

1901903354

OCLC:

47776621