Senke Jisshoku - 10 Craft Families of Three Sen Lineage Holders 千家十職 Part 2

Senke Jissoku is a now well-recognized name of a group of 10 multi-generation famlies that have a closely working relationship with the 3 (san) Senke families that trace their lineage directly to Sen no Rikyu: Mushakouji Senke, Ura Senke and Omote Senke. While there are many other craftspeople whose work has long or even more recently been patronized by these tast-makers, as well as other chanoyu lineages that have patronized the craftspeople, these 10 are formally afforded a special relationship as a group in formal ceremonies and death anniversaries of past Senke grandmasters. The number of craftsmen (usually male lineages) used to vary depending on the family branch, but this distinction came about as a result of a group exhibition staged by and at the Mitsukoshi Department Store branch in Osaka in the Meiji period (1919).

Raku Kichizaemon X V 樂吉左衛門 

Chawanshi (potter for chawan and other ceramic ware) 茶碗師

(Interesting that this blog did not have a short paragraph about Raku. This is from the 2016 catalog from the Raku Museum.) 

Raku is one of many low-fired ceramic traditions around the world. It has its roots in Ming dynasty three-colored sosansai) wares from Fujian province in China. The tea bowls fashioned by a potter named Chojiro during the Azuchi-Momoyama period in the last 16^th century marked the dawn of Raku Ware. There exists little or not detailed documentation of the relationship between Chojiro and Rikyu; however, Chojiro’s independent creative spirit has been preserved thereaafter throughout generations and centuries of the Raku famly. Each new generation has developed his own distinct style, who;e at the same time honoring the timeless traditions and knowledge handed down from father to son for over 430 years.” The current head of the family is the 15^th generation. His son Raku Atsundo is quite productive.

  

Onishi Seiwemon 大西清右衛門 

Kamashi (tea kettle maker) 土風炉師

The Onishi family is a family of Kyoto tea kettle makers, whose work has continued for over 400 years, from the latter half of the Muromachi period. The fourth generation head of the family called himself Seiwemon, and from the sixth generation, excluding the ninth, all subsequent family heads have inherited the name. Their shop is found in the Sanjo-kamanza area in Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto. The current head of the family is the 16th generation of Seiwemon.  

 

Nakamura Sotetsu 中村宗哲

Nushi (lacquerer) 金物

The Nakamura family is a family of lacquerers, whose work has continued for almost 400 years. Originally, they made furniture decorated with gold or silver lacquer (called Tsurei nushi), but starting in the Meiji period they became specialized lacquerers for tea ceremony utensils. In 2006, the second daughter of the 12th generation Nakamura Sotetsu inherited the name to become the 13th generation Sotetsu.  

   

Komazawa Risai 駒沢利斎

Sashimonoshi (wood joinery / carpentry) 指物師

The professional name inherited through the generations by carpenters, who are purveyors to the san-Senke, and who manufacture shelves, incense containers, and fireplace frames, among others. After the death of the 14th generation family head in 1977, the position has remained unfilled for a long time, and currently, Yoshida Hirozo, the son of the 14th generation master's nephew, is undergoing training to inherit the line.

Nakagawa Joeki 中川浄益

Kanamonoshi (hardware maker)  金物師

The name inherited by each generation of the head of the Nakagawa family, a family of hardware makers. Originally, they made armor in Echigo province, but the first generation to try his hand at making tea ceremony utensils, Nakagawa Kojuro, took up the name of Joeki, albeit using different characters, and from the second generation, the same name of Joeki (spelt with the current characters) has been used. The current head of the family is the 11th generation Joeki.

Yuko Tsuchida 土田友湖

Fukuroshi (textile articles, utensil covers) 袋師

One of the ten occupations for Senke. From the second generation, the head of the family is referred to as "Hanshiro", and becomes Yuko when he retires and shaves his head. Up until the fifth generation, they made shifuku (silk pouches for holding tea caddies), but since then, have been making fukusa (small cloths for wiping tea utensils) and sashes for men's kimonos in addition to shifuku. The current head of the family is the 12th Tsuchida Yuko.

Okumura Kichibei  奥村吉兵衛

Hyogushi (scroll mounter and paper products) 表具師

Washi, Japanese paper,  has many applications in the setting of chanoyu. In addition to mounting scrolls, paper is used on doors (fusuma and windows), as well as (pictured) pads of decorative paper used for kami kamashiki (kettle rests). The current generation is the 12th.








 

Hiki Ikkan 飛来一閑

Ikkanbari saikushi (lacquered papier-mache maker) 一閑張細工師

The name used by ikkanbari saikushi through the generations. The founder of ikkanbari in Japan, one of the types of lacquering, it is a lacquering family that has supplied the Senke through the ages with utensils lacquered in the ikkanbari method, such as tea caddies and incense containers. The current generation is the 16th, and along with the 12th generation of Sotetsu Nakamura, is one of the rare examples of a female head of Senke jissoku.

Kuroda Shogen 黒田正玄

Takezaiku (bamboo crafter) / hishakushi (ladle maker) 柄杓師

The name inherited through the ages by the family of takezaiku / hishakushi. Apart from ladles, they make tea ceremony utensils such as stands, incense containers, and flower vases, out of bamboo, and have delivered their works to the Senke. The current generation is the 13th. They do not make chasen! This would seem to be a huge omission. My informants tell me that it is because one uses a new chasen each time. Seems odd that the iconic utensil for chanoyu is not made by a famous craftsman.

Nishimura (Eiraku) Zengoro 永樂善五郎

Doburo yakimonoshi (potter of braziers) 土風炉師

Ceramic artists adept at making braziers used atop tatami mat and tea bowls. From the first to ninth generations, they named themselves Nishimura, and mainly made braziers that hold charcoal fires. From the tenth generation, they have called themselves Eiraku, and make tea cups in addition to braziers. The current generation is the 17th.

It’s a Family Affair ... RAKU: A Legacy of Japanese Tea Ceramics

RAKU: A Legacy of Japanese Tea Ceramics

By Raku Kichizaemon XV and Raku Atsundo

Edited by Melissa M. Rinne.

Translated from the Japanese by Christopher Stephens, Melissa M. Rinne, Martie Jelinek, Juliet Winters Carpenter, Christy Bartlett and Maya M. Hara

Kyoto, Raku Museum / Seigensha 2015

Review by Lauren W. Deutsch for Kyoto Journal

The publishing of this wonderfully designed, useful English language catalog that documents the unbroken 450 years-old legacy of handcrafted ceramics by THE Raku family [and friends, see below] was timed to coincide with the landmark exhibition – RAKU:  The Cosmos in a Tea Bowl --  of nearly 100 masterpieces of ceramic art with representations of the work by all 16 generations of the Raku family tradition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (and afterwards at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.) in 2015. Robert T. Singer, curator, and LACMA’s head of Japanese Art, championed the exhibition in concert with the much - decorated Raku Kichizaemon XV, head of the Raku Museum in Kyoto and designated (1986) a Living National Treasure of Japan attended the opening.

The book is foremost an illustrated chronology of some 206 ceramic works attributed to all of the Raku masters, with biographies of the artists. An addendum clearly shows photographs of box lids and translations of inscriptions and provenance. Thus, it is an essential tool to use when deeply exploring the exhibition at home in Japan as well as on the road in the USA and Russia. It contains not only extensive notes (in English and kanji) about the pieces, but through the photographs one can see details some of the nuances that each generation contributed to the oeuvre of the esteemed “house”. RAKU is a valuable addition to a chajin’s library, even without the benefit of being in the august presence of the exhibition’s two Registered Important Cultural Properties: a chawan from each of Chojiro, (here called Raku I) and another by Raku III (Donyu), and a Registered Important Art Object by Nichiren (Hokke) coreligionist / calligrapher best friend Hon’ami Koetsu. I was impressed by the relatively small size of the exhibited chawans that seem to get just a bit bigger over successive generations. Was it because people’s hands grew?

The essays – whose specific attribution of authorship is not detailed despite the use of the first-person-singular -- include photographs of rare documents that form the basis of the anecdote-rich family and national cultural history. We learn about the painstaking efforts to pinpoint Chojiro’s roots – dead-reckoned toward China -- and a cast of other venerable successors who begat, married into, etc. to creat a definitive singular succession of masters, one per generation, to this day. Of course, this being the definitive volume on Raku, the uniquely non coiled hand – hand built functional ceramic style, we are given the opportunity to realign our understanding of the journey of each of the artists, their influences and impact over 16 generations.

Proper homage is paid to Chojiro’s muse, his contemporary, the venerable tea master Sen no Rikyu, whose official family tree has sprouted and been spliced with branches wherever fine Japanese “high” culture landed until the present time. But when- and wherever Raku was, so was tea and vice versa. There was a dialogue between contemporaries from the start. Great emphasis placed on discussion regarding Chojiro’s developing the “spirit of imayaki”, the “now” ceramics. One can see how that works well with Rikyu’s wabicha, equally informal and essentially ichi-go. Ichi-e, one meeting, never to be repeated. He also takes liberty to project that the essence of Rikyu’s conviction to commit his final act of seppuku at the insistence of the Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi could somehow be intimated by holding Chojiro’s chawans.

Unlike other artisanal enterprises, including other ceramic styles, and despite the propensity towards the technique / style evolving from the outside into adjectives – from raku to raku-like, Raku prides itself in maintaining the singularity of its head-of-house as the only producer of its works; there are no contemporaneous students or schools that are recognized, as the book details through text about other kiln sites. There is also an extremely valuable chart of recognized seals of the Raku masters and some other raku-ists.

What impresses me more is that successive Raku generations are not “taught” by the previous one. The three-step mastery process shuhari is described as 1/ learning the basics (shu), 2/ breaking with conventions to express oneself (ha) and 3/ finally transcending hte inherent contradictions between convention and consciousness to find true freedom of expression (ri). One almost gets the feeling that the existence of the head Raku of any generation lives and works in relative isolation to preserve the essence of his creative spirit through the length of his days. Another Raku maxim is onko chushin, literally, “warm to the old, know the new”. A video of Kichizaemon, making a chawan may be found online. One can see him going into a zone that seems to begin with his hand caressing the clay. This clay may have been drawn and processed for him by his grandfather, Raku XIII, Seiynu. in the tradition of each generation preparing clay for two ahead.

I remember being generously invited into the workroom / studio of Onishi Seiwemon, head of the famed and only remaining Kyoto cast ironworks that makes chagama, one of the Senke Jusshoku, 10 Senke Craft Associations. What impressed me most were the clearly well-worn dies, and patterns for kettles for tea ceremony that were on his drafting table. These crafts people not only inherit names, they also become chief stewards of facilities, relationships, prestige and fine examples of works from the past prestige, but also handle the very tools that brought them to this moment in time.

In addition to chawan and other chadogu, the book and exhibition offer other examples of work, including incensers, plates, flower containers and other objects. There is much discussion also about the fundamental aesthetic qualities of Chojiro’s “Two-color Glazed Lion” that provide “important signals which presage the subsequent development of the Chojiro tea bowl.”

Another essay goes into the layout of the Raku production facilities and techniques, such as the identity of the fuel, and use (or not) of bellows, as well as sources of clay and glaze materials. I now wish I had done a little digging along the banks of the Kamo River for a souvenir! To further the notion that each generation must make his own mark in a succession of artistic tradition, it is explained that the Raku enterprise lacks any “definitive recipe books about glazes or clays, leaving each master to discover new ways to “create hitherto non-existent expressions”. We are told, “Raku family does not have any secret hereditary texts.”

“While they inherited Chojiro’s black glaze, they also have the second generation Jokei’s black matte glaze; the third head Donyu’s black lustrous, glossy curtain glaze; the fourth generation Ichinyu’s mixture of black and crimson glazes; the fifth head Sonyu’s black glaze with its lusterless yet refined matte kase finish reminiscent of a metal survae; the seventh head Chonyu’s jet black, lacquer-like surfaces. In this way, the black glazes of the Raku heads f are never the same; each must invent his own individual black glaze within the confines of the medium while questioning the age in which he lives, and distinguishing himself with a unique style.”

Another essay dwells more on wabi and the influences of Zen Buddhism, the “Beauty of Relativity and Yoshida Kenko’s Essays on Idleness, waka poetry, especially the Man’yoshu and later Kokin wakashu.

The “Ultimate Wabi” section, likely written by Kichizaemon, connects Chojiro’s chawans with a discussion of a 1997 European exhibition of Raku ware and another where he explores his instinctive connection with the sensibility to the work of Mark Rothko, Yves Klein and Marcel Duchamp.

“I cannot but feel that Duchamp, the mother of modern art, and Chojiro, who drowns his tea bowls in black glaze, must have shared similar viewpoints,” adding,“ The totality of Chojiro’s tea bowls transcends all types of language and cognition.”

The book ends with information about the Kyoto-based museum and Raku Kichizaemon Pavilion at the Sagawa Art Museum.

A great companion to this book is Morgan Pitelka’s Handmade Culture: Raku Potters, Patrons and Tea Practitioners in Japan. (Honolulu. University of Hawai’i Press. 2005.) Here I was able to learn more that  many tea masters enjoyed making raku-style chawans for their own use, sometimes in backyard kilns and other times in the ceramic master’s studios. Pitelka delves deeply into the social, aesthetic and economic impact of patronage on the production of raku wares. Further he explores in depth the evolution of cultural “households” in Tokugawa Society, and much more about chado’s Iemoto system and its relationship to the Raku family. Like Raku, he also writes about the expansion of raku technique through the establishment of kilns in the West.

Here are some of the articles I've written about chado.
The list is growing.
Some have hot links for online reading. 

Kyoto Journal Special issue: "TEA"   Vol. 71 2009
Contributing Editor, Lauren Deutsch

• Tea: A Mirror of Soul, Tan Dun's Opera (review) (print only)

• "Much Ado About Matcha: Appreciating the Tast of Powdered Green Tea" 

• "Tea 'Beyond' Japan: Chanoyu in the Diaspora" 

• Delamu (film) and Tea and Tourism: Tourists, Traditions and Transformations, Lee Joliffe (review)

• “The Books of Tea: Two Leaves and a Bud”: Liquid Jade, Beatrice Hohenegger, and The Book of Tea, Okakura Kazuko  (reviews) 

• Americans Studying the Traditional Japanese Art of the Tea Ceremony: The Internationalizing of a Traditional Art,Barbara Mori (review) (print only)

• The Korean Way of Tea: An Introductory Guide, Brother Anthony of Taizé and Kyeong-Hee Hong (review)

• The Ancient Tea Horse Road, Travels With the Last Himalayan Muleteers, Jeff Fuchs (print only)

• The Tea Ceremony and Women's Empowerment in Modern Japan: Bodies Re-presenting the Past,
Etsuko Kato, and Japanese Tea Culture: Art, History and Practice, Morgan Pitelka  (reviews)  

Parabola “Entering the Way of Tea: 
The “Dewy Path” to the Tea House”  Fall 2009  

L.A. Yoga / Find Bliss  

“Pouring the Heart Into the Bowl: The Japanese Way of Tea Practiced in 21st Century Los Angeles” February 2013