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Collecting Japanese Antiques. Alistair Seton
Читать онлайн.Название Collecting Japanese Antiques
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isbn 9781462905881
Автор произведения Alistair Seton
Издательство Ingram
Takeno Jōō (1502-55) and Sen Rikyū (1522-91) were famous sixteenth-century Tea masters. They idealized the quiet and ordinary (wabi) over the extravagant. The tea room came to have only four and a half mats with a low or "crawl door" so that even nobles had to bend their heads to enter- in humility (swords were left outside), but also in serenity, having sauntered through a garden of tranquility scattered with apparently naturally fallen petals or leaves, putting the cares of state behind them.
Wabicha Tea masters, who stressed the simple and restrained, moved away from imported utensils such as temmoku, hare's tooth, and other famous Chinese bowls, seeking locally made bamboo ladles and pots, praising them for their natural simplicity. This led to the growth of new ceramic forms: black, white, and gray Seta wares were plain; Oribe had rich greens and more varied patterns; Karatsu was high-fired stoneware with attractive, quiet painting; Raku was low-fired, simple-to-make-by-hand ware. Its appeal lay in the surprises possible when it was taken still hot out of the kiln, and its suitability for amateurs, as it was not made on the wheel. Examples of all these are in the market, though later examples are more easily available and, naturally, cheaper.
Practicing Tea has encouraged people to look at things with an aesthete's eye. Little outwardly happens in a tea house so the few but often historically valuable things round you in a tiny room take on added significance: your eyes get trained. This focus and attention to detail is exemplified by Sen Rikyū's minimalist approach to the magnificent flowering bushes on the way to Hideyoshi's tea house at Jurakudai Palace. He cut them all off, but the most magnificent bloom he placed in the alcove so that guests would concentrate on that, which in turn stood for all flowers-seen through a magnifying glass.
The same may be said of the elaborate ritual (temae) for serving tea. An extraordinary amount of time is first spent cleaning the garden, room, and utensils, and the guests continue this by ritual washings. The host shows his skill by performing in front of his guests. As he prepares tea, there is a set etiquette of movements and conversation, closely mirroring the patterns of daily life where a set phrase still sets off a question or greeting today. In a significant anomaly, given the rigid patterns, each tea ceremony is looked at as being unique-the only time that these few people meet, drink tea, and talk about this and that-which will never happen again in the same way.
With this scrupulous attention to detail and cleanliness, and insistence on the prescribed order, Tea seems to epitomize many of the deepest patterns in Japanese life. Murata Shuko, a pioneer of the Tea ceremony, sums it up: "It is not an amusement or technique, but enjoyment of enlightened satisfaction."
Tierney quotes Okakura Kakuzō: "Cha-no-yu (Tea ceremony) is a whole point of view about man and nature," and goes on to say, "It is a case of harmony with nature rather than against it." Better perhaps is Tea master Sen Soshitsu's comment that it is a mental discipline to "satisfy a spiritual thirst... moistening a dry life."
Fig. 6 Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768), "Da ruma," hanging scroll, ink on paper, 51 x 21 1/2 in (130 x 55 cm). Photo courtesy Osaka City Museum of Modern Art.
Fig. 7 "Portrait of Toyotomi Hide-yoshi," hanging scroll, inscribed by Ikyō, dated 1600, color on silk, 43 x 18 in (109 x 46 cm). Painted two years after Hideyoshi's death, it may be a remembered likeness. Photo courtesy Osaka Municipal Museum of Art.
Ikebana: Taming Nature by Season
Since earlier centuries, as part of worship, people had put flowers into vases pointing upward (tatebana) to deities in heaven. In a pattern typical of Japan, the form became stylized. Flowers were not simply thrust into a bowl. At the same time, flowers had become a part of Japanese poetry: the poetic trinity of the moon, snow, and flowers (especially cherries) was established and parties were held to admire them and write poems about them. A game (hana-awase or flower matching) was played by teams, going off into the fields and vying to collect the best bunch.
The game went out of fashion but revived differently under the rulers Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and Yoshimasa. Ming vases were coming in and people compared them while holding flowers at flower parties (kakai). Soon, given people's natural urge to compete, they tried to make their vase look better by arranging the flowers artistically. Fame came to court assistant Ryū-ami and Ikenobō Senkei, priest and founder of the still-extant Ikenobō flower arrangement school. He made his first well-known ikebana in 1462.
As people's taste for the way of flowers (kadō) developed, they wanted to keep the fiction that you just happened to have found the plants that way (not only obviously pretty flowers but bamboo and herbs too) in the countryside, so they were arranged to echo natural settings. Rules were adopted. The central stem was its shin (spirit) and asymmetrically around it were placed others that supported it. For formal occasions, the main stem was straight, so it would be dignified, but on informal occasions a crooked plant was chosen instead. There always had to be a strong sense of the current season, so flowers were chosen to stress it.
Rikka styles were mainstream for centuries. They were full of symbolism, with seven points and positive (yin) and negative (yang) sides. The high point represented Mt Sumeru, the Buddhist world center. Rikka became even more complicated in the late eighteenth century with nine points. In the later sixteenth century, and probably as a result of Sen Rikū's example, the simpler nageire (literally "chucking them in" style) gained popularity among Tea people, as it echoed the wabicha ethos, using one or just a few rather less fancy flowers. A century later came the shoka or seika style, in reaction to the rikka's complexity. It aimed at being dignified like the rikka but also simple, trying to express a flower's nature. A common pattern was triangular and later the terminology for this became ten (sky), chi (earth), and jin (man). Usually arrangements started 4 inches (10 cm) above the container, whichever style was used. The categorization and multiplicity of styles is very Japanese.
New ideas have flooded in since Meiji (1868-1912), and of course the whole corpus of Western and other exotic flowers. Today, there are a couple of thousand ikebana schools. Ohara Unshin felt that Ikenobō styles were too spindly and top heavy, so lowered his center of aesthetic gravity, and in 1897 at Osaka brought in the moribana ("piled up") style and low, shallow containers (suiban) to great acclaim. The Ikenobō school remains traditional but experiments with modern styles. The post-war Sōgetsu school advocates free arrangements and wide-ranging materials, but, old and new, schools borrow from each other, so that Ohara's assemblages often include non-traditional materials and Sōgetsu's sculptural works (one was called "Locomotive"!) no longer shock.
Meanwhile, Ikebana International (founded in 1956 by Ellen Gordon Allen) spreads the word around the world that flower aesthetics are exciting, enjoyable, and beautiful. Collectors will find that many scrolls reflect the influence of flower arrangements.
Bonsai: Trees Kept Miniature
The same deep interest underlies bonsai, in which one produces a personal, stylized natural beauty in a pot-but the plant continues to live (Fig. 8). A potted plant stays as one buys it, but a bonsai is gradually changed to meet some ideal of its owner (and often his descendants). It is guided to develop in certain ways while remaining within the confines of a planter. Landscapes laid out on a tray using also stones and earth are not felt to be true bonsai but bonkei.
Originating in China, the first evidence of bonsai in Japan is in a picture scroll of 1195. One element setting Japan's bonsai apart from China's is their strict classification by type. The oldest extant bonsai was planted by Tokugawa Iemitsu nearly 400 years ago. The variety of trees grown has expanded from traditional pines, junipers, plums, and maples to include low bushes like azaleas.
Though the word "dwarf" springs to mind, most bonsai trees are standard species. Occasionally, bonsai lovers search in wild, windswept places for naturally occurring miniatures. Trees are primarily kept small by deliberate pruning, using shallow containers, pinching off new growth, and repotting every year