Rediscovering Rikyu and the Beginnings of the Japanese Tea Ceremony [Hardcover]

University of California Herbert Plutschow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2003 | Series: Rediscovering

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) period was finally coming to an end and the process of political unification under the strong military leadership of Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi had begun. An important focus in the book is the author's research into why Rikyu's tragic suicide, enforced by Hideyoshi, was a necessary outcome of the emerging conflict between ritual, art and politics. In addition, the study highlights the tensions and struggles between individual artists who were led by a sense of artistic identity and inspiration, together with the political leaders who imposed their artistic taste on the nation. Plutschow also provides new insights into the sixteenth-century Japanese perception of beauty - commonly called wabi - a simple, often austere beauty displayed in tea in order to unite host and guests as equals. This book will be of considerable interest in research connected with politics, Zen Buddhism and art history as well as the central issues regarding the history and development of tea in Japan.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Herbert Plutschow was born in Switzerland and educated in Switzerland, England, Spain, France, Japan and the USA and got his PhD from Columbia University, New York. He is author of some 15 books, including Four Japanese Diaries of the Middle Ages (co-author) (East Asian Papers, Cornell University, 1981) and Nihon Kiko Bungaku Binran (co-author) (Handbook for the study of medieval Japanese travel literature) (Tokyo: Musashino Shoin, 1975). He has taught at the University of Illinois, University of Zuerich, Switzerland, International Christian University, University of Paris, Sorbonne, Kyoto University and Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 226 pages
• Publisher: BRILL/Global Oriental (May 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1901903354
• ISBN-13: 978-1901903355
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,482,505 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Impressed, November 19, 2003

By 

David P Oller (Albuquerque, NM United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rediscovering Rikyu and the Beginnings of the Japanese Tea Ceremony (Hardcover)

I love this book! The author has researched and presented the subject well. It has put so much of the Tea Ceremony in perspective for me that I am grateful!

It is good to see an objective view, questioning histories coming from sources which rely on information from the Iemoto schools themselves. In the development of most Iemoto systems a loosely based and often fictious history is created, what the Chinese called "Leaning on the Ancients." However, these histories don't usually withstand the test of time and academic scrutiny. This is one of those wonderful books that sheds light on the subject, and allows us to see something of the real history.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Morning Glories and Liminal Tea, August 18, 2005

By 

David Starr-Glass (Jerusalem, Israel) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rediscovering Rikyu and the Beginnings of the Japanese Tea Ceremony (Hardcover)

This is a delightful and scholarly work that examines the history and cultural significance of tea in Japan. It is a book of stories about great tea-masters and focuses on the most famous and influential of them, Rikyu.

Here is a particularly striking story.

One of Rikyu's guest knew that Morning Glories grew on the hedge in tea-master's garden. Wishing to see these flowers opening in the morning sun, he came to the tea party early but was dismayed to find that all of the flowers had been cut down. However, on entering the tea hut he found that Rikyu had placed a single Morning Glory in a simple bamboo vase in the alcove. He was transfixed by the beauty of the solitary flower and by the realization that Rikyu had deliberately shifted the focus away from the massed flowers of the hedgerow to this isolated specimen. Such were the delicate considerations and expression of the tea-master, and such were the considerations of the society within which he lived.

"Rediscovering Rikyu" offers the reader an engaging insight into an unfamiliar world, a world redolent with Zen metaphysics, jealous and feuding warlords, anguish and ritualistic suicide, the aesthetics of preparing tea, and the transformational beauty of the Morning Glory. It is distanced world, and Herbert Plutschow is a knowledgeable and scholarly guide.

But the book is more than history. It examines tea as a way of approaching, attaining, and sustaining liminality within a Japan that was in a period of ongoing conflict. Plutschow carefully and skillfully examines the deep-core symbolism and tranformative possibilities within the delicate art form or tea.

This is a delightful, readable, and interesting book that provides an unexpected and welcome insight not simply into a different culture but into our own cultures and contemporary preoccupations.