Tea Bowl with Crane Design - Asian Art Museum | Education

Tea master Sen Soshitsu XV prepares tea
at the opening of the Asian Art Museum,
San Francisco, 2003. Photo by Kazuhiro
Tsuruta.
Tea bowl with crane design, approx. 1603.
Japan. Edo period (1615–1868). Glazed
stoneware; Hagi ware. The Avery Brundage
Collection, B72P17.
Asian Art Museum Education Department

Who is the man in the picture? What is he doing?
Sen Soshitsu is the fifteenth generation head of the Urasenke
tradition which provides instruction in the “Way of Tea”
(Chado; also known as Chanoyu, literally “hot water for tea”).
He has written that this practice, though often called the “tea
ceremony, “ is not really a ceremony or ritual at all, but a way
of life based on the simple act of serving tea with a pure heart.
Beyond its spiritual aspect, the “Way of Tea” allows participants
to interact with other people, with nature, and with the
environment on a basic, satisfying level.
The photograph shows Sen Soshitsu preparing tea at an
event to mark the Asian Art Museum’s re-opening in 2003.
He is seated in a special tearoom installed in the museum’s
Japanese art gallery, having just ladled hot water from an iron
kettle that is heating on a brazier recessed into the floor. He
Tea bowl (detail; B72P17).
pours the hot water in a steady stream from a bamboo ladle
into the tea bowl set before him on the mat. The utensils he
uses and his carefully choreographed actions are both aspects
of the practice that can be traced directly to the influential sixteenth century tea master Sen Rikyu
(1522–1591). Sen Rikyu taught the way of tea to several samurai lords of his day.
What is the object in the second picture? How was it used?
The tea bowl is one of the most important utensils used in a tea gathering. A small quantity of powdered
green tea is first removed from a tea container and placed into the bottom of the bowl. Water
is added and the powdered tea and water are then blended together to form a bright green beverage,
and the host presents the warm bowl of tea to his guest for drinking. After drinking the tea the guest
carefully examines the tea bowl and the guest might comment on the bowl’s design, age, and beauty.
For example, the crane decorating this bowl is an auspicious symbol associated with longevity and
marital fidelity. Like most tea bowls, this one is made of clay, and has a soft, slightly pitted surface
and ridged sides meant to rest comfortably in the drinker’s hands.
What does this object tell us about the role of culture in samurai life?
By the sixteenth century, the “Way of Tea” was wildly popular within samurai society, as one of the
cultural practices (bun) encouraged as a counterweight to military training (bu). Hideyoshi and
Nobunaga, two of the great Momoyama era (1573–1615) warlords, were both ardent students of tea
and collectors of tea bowls and other utensils. Nobunaga is even known to have awarded prized tea
bowls to his vassals for meritorious duty in battle. It was their patronage of the tea master Sen Rikyu
that led to his preeminence at the end of the sixteenth century.
Rikyu favored simple, unadorned objects like this bowl as an expression of a kind of refined
rusticity. Surprisingly, perhaps, the samurai valued this humble aesthetic even at a time when other
art forms, such as painting, clothing, and even armor design showed a taste for flamboyant, bold,
and colorful decoration made even more lavish with gold ornamentation.
Asian Art Museum Education Department