Kettle Lid Rest (Futaoki) with Dragon Design, Japanese, Edo period, 18th century. Stoneware with Oribe-green glaze, 2 9/16 x 1 3/16 x 2 9/16 in. (6.5 x 3 x 6.5 cm). Collection of Peggy and Richard M. Danziger, ll.b. 1963.

NEW HAVEN, CT.- Tea Culture of Japan: Chanoyu Past and Present, one of the most comprehensive exhibitions of Japanese tea culture ever presented by an American museum, opens on January 20, 2009, at the Yale University Art Gallery. Approximately 100 objects explore the evolution of the Japanese tea service— chanoyu—from its antecedents in the 9th century through the 16th century, when tea service reached unprecedented levels of aesthetic refinement and cultural importance, and up to the present day, in which contemporary Japanese artists keep the tradition of chanoyu very much alive.

The exhibition, which remains on view through April 26, 2009, is drawn primarily from the Peggy and Richard M. Danziger Collection, notable for the exceptional quality, rarity, and historical importance of its tea ceremony objects. In addition to exquisitely crafted tea utensils in a wide range of media, the exhibition includes painted screens, works of calligraphy, incense and flower containers, attire, and other objects associated with Japanese tea culture through the ages.

The installation also features a life-size portable tea room containing objects arranged for a 16thcentury tea ceremony, among them a bamboo tea scoop (1580s) made by the revered tea master Sen no Rikyū, considered the father of Japanese chanoyu.

Jock Reynolds, the Henry J. Heinz II Director of the Yale University Art Gallery, explains, “Western museums have only a scattering of objects related to the Japanese tea ceremony. The Gallery is thrilled that the exceptional generosity of Peggy and Richard Danziger has made possible this remarkable exhibition, providing American audiences with a rare opportuniopportunity to explore the extraordinarily rich history of this ancient but still vital aspect of Japanese culture.”

Sadako Ohki, the Gallery’s Japan Foundation Associate Curator of Japanese Art, and organizer of the exhibition adds, “Far beyond the practical function and physical beauty of Japanese tea accoutrements, these objects were often endowed with a wealth of important associations and meanings that provide unique insights into Japanese culture and thought. A simple tea scoop, if thoughtfully studied and examined, can speak volumes about the religious, political, and social mores of the time, as well as the personal history and character of its maker or owner, in addition to its simple aesthetic beauty. It is our hope that through this exhibition our visitors may gain greater appreciation of the profoundly important role these objects have played, and continue to play, in Japanese culture.”

The exhibition is organized into three broad and roughly chronological sections corresponding to the major phases in the development of Japanese tea culture: the medieval period, from approximately the 9th to the 15th century, when the first forms of Japanese tea service emerged; the establishment and proliferation of the traditions of wabi tea culture, beginning in the 16th century; and the present day, highlighted by objects created by contemporary artists for chanoyu in Japan and elsewhere.

Tea Culture in Medieval Japan
While the custom of serving tea was brought to Japan from China in the 9th century, it did not become widespread until the later medieval period, in the 13th century. At that time, different segments of society, most notably the warrior classes and Buddhist monks, evolved distinctive approaches to tea service. While both emphasized the display and use of precious objects imported from China, for the Japanese warrior classes tea service was an opportunity for ostentation and unbridled revelry. A luxuriously embroidered Nō warrior’s robe, a six-panel screen of cherry trees and maples, and an elaborate suit of Japanese armor evoke the so-called basara (a Buddhist term meaning “excess” or “extravagance”) tea culture of the medieval warrior.

The more formal and refined tea culture that evolved in Japanese Buddhist temples is exemplified by a group of exquisitely rendered Chinese ceramics, including an 8th-to-9th-century cosmetic box and a delicate Qingbai ware water dropper with a dragon handle from the late 13th to the early 14th century. Temple tea services also encouraged the contemplation of other forms of Chinese art, such as the handscroll painting of a river landscape from the 15th to the 16th century after the 13th-century Chinese artist Xia Gui, included in this section. Poem on the Theme of Snow, by the 14th-century Zen abbot Musō Soseki, also reflects this more spiritual view of tea, paving the way for the subdued wabi tea aesthetic illustrated in the next section of the exhibition.

The Sixteenth Century and the Establishment of Wabi Tea Culture
The 16th century was a pivotal period in the evolution of Japanese tea culture. It was then that the legendary tea master Sen no Rikyū (1522–1591) established a philosophy and practice known as wabi—still followed today—in which the tea service was conceived as a time of physical as well as spiritual renewal involving all of the human senses.

A uniquely Japanese aesthetic, influenced by Zen practice and thought—and in part a reaction to the excesses of the basara tea culture—wabi tea service emphasized restraint, simplicity, humility, and oneness with nature. Bamboo rather than costly ivory or bronze was the preferred material for tea utensils, and there was a new reverence for ceramics and other objects created in a rustically simple style.

The centerpiece of this section is a life-size portable tea room (chashitsu) in which objects have been selected and arranged to reflect the sparing but elegant aesthetic of wabi tea established by Rikyū. Included, for example, are four bamboo tea scoops (chasaku), one carved by Rikyū himself, and another carved by Daishin Gitō (1656–1730), the 273rd Abbot of Daitokuji, and inscribed with the name Hyakusai(One Hundred Years Old). (Tea accoutrements were often given names; Gitō’s tea scoop may have been a gift intended to wish the recipient a long life.) Positioned nearby is a 17th-century bamboo flowercontainer made by Furuta Oribe, one of Rikyū’s important followers.

In all, some 60 objects, including kettles, trays, water containers and ladles, braziers, tea caddies, sake cups, incense containers, calligraphic works, and paintings, illustrate the profound influence of wabi tea service in Japan. Notable among them are a tea bowl attributed to Raku Chōjirō (1516–1592), founder of the tradition of unembellished Black Raku bowls, thought to have been first commissioned by Rikyū, and a selection of 17th-century Korean rice bowls, then regarded as decidedly plebian objects, which Rikyū daringly reused as tea bowls.

Chanoyu in the Twenty-first Century
The final section of the exhibition focuses on chanoyu practice in the 21st century and its international character. Talented artists active in Japan and elsewhere are creating objects in a spectrum of styles and mediums expressly for the practice of chanoyu. Many of them, such as Raku Kichizaemon XV, representing the 15th generation of Raku ceramic artists, continue the wabi spirit of innovation and individual expression with respect for tradition. Kichizaemon makes large, architectonic Raku tea bowls by hand, without the use of the potters’ wheel and employing only a few simple tools, just as his ancestors did centuries ago. At times parting with Raku tradition, these are often glazed with bold combinations of colors: gold, green, yellow, or orange; his work is represented here by a gray hanging flower vase textured with firing markings. Another artist, Tsujimura Shirō, specializes in tea utensils, particularly tea bowls, rendered in a purposefully coarse style, with warped shapes and uneven glazes, recalling Rikyū’s reverence for rustic and unsophisticated wares.

Also on view in this section is a three-minute video of snow gently accumulating on a clump of bamboo, created in 2006 by Korean artist Lee Lee-Nam. Inspired by a painting by 18th-century Korean artist Kim Hong-do, it is a poetic and respectful, yet wholly contemporary and original, embodiment of the wabi spirit.

Lee Lee-Nam, Bamboo in Snow, Korean, 2006; inspired by an original 18th century ink painting by Kim Hong-do. Single-channel video (transferred to DVD) on a 42-inch (106.7 cm) monitor, 3 minutes run time, 30 x 56 x 4 in. (76.2 x 142.2 x 10.2 cm) (with frame). Courtesy of KooNew York and Lee Lee-Nam.