Takeno Jōō and Sen no Rikyū — Completion of Wabi-Cha

From Jukō to Jōō and Rikyū — 150 Years to Completion

From the “starting point of wabi-cha” of Murata Jukō in the previous article [Murata Jukō], it took about 150 years for wabi-cha to reach completion. Two men carried out this completion: the Sakai armorer Takeno Jōō (1502-1555) and his disciple Sen no Rikyū (1522-1591).

Jōō articulated Jukō’s thought in the vocabulary of waka and refined the architectural design. Rikyū compressed it to its limit and produced the completed form of wabi-cha with a two-mat tea room and Raku bowls. He then met a strange fate: ritual suicide through conflict with Hideyoshi.

Takeno Jōō — Bridging Jukō and Rikyū

Takeno Jōō (1502-1555) was born in Sakai (Izumi province) to an armorer family (“Kawaya”). His family’s leather and armor trade, aided by Sakai’s booming Warring-States economy, amassed enormous wealth.

Points in the Life

• 1502 — Born into the Kawaya family in Sakai
• ca. 1525 — At 24, went up to Kyoto and studied waka under Sanjōnishi Sanetaka (courtier and poet, 1455-1537)
• 1532 — Practiced Zen under Dairin Sōtō of Daitoku-ji; took the name “Ikkan Koji”
• Late 1530s — Studied tea under the line of Sōju (Jukō’s son)
• 1540s — Taught tea in Sakai; Rikyū, Sōkyū, Sōgyū entered his door
• 1551 — Handed the family to his son Shingorō Sōga and retired
• 1555 — Died at age 54

“Teika’s Wabi” — The Articulation of Wabi

Jōō’s greatest contribution was to articulate Jukō’s intuitive aesthetic (“blurring the boundary between wa and kan”) in the vocabulary of the waka tradition.

Of the poems of Fujiwara no Teika (in the Shin-Kokin Wakashū) that he learned from Sanjōnishi Sanetaka, Jōō most valued:

Miwataseba hana mo momiji mo nakarikeri / ura no tomaya no aki no yūgure “When I look about, neither flowers nor autumn leaves; only the reed-thatched hut on the shore at the autumn dusk.”

The beauty of what is not there — through the negative form, saying that no cherry blossoms and no autumn leaves are visible, a chill, still beauty comes to stand. Jōō set this “beauty of the absent” at the root of wabi-cha.

Rikyū would later push this further, saying (in [Nanpōroku]): “Only when there are also flowers and autumn leaves — to cast them aside is the utmost of wabi.”

The Four-and-a-Half-Mat of Jōō’s Taste

Jōō refined Jukō’s four-and-a-half-mat room still further in the direction of the rustic:

• Walls — Mud walls (leaving the paper-covered wall of shoin behind and exposing the earth)
• Ceiling — Thatched or plaited (ajiro)
• Windows — Shitaji-mado (foundation window) — a section of mud wall left unplastered, exposing the bamboo mesh
• Pillars — Trial of the menkawa-bashira (a pillar with its bark left at the corners), rather than the square pillar
• Floor — The frame of the tokonoma left as bare wood rather than lacquered

These are the design elements that would lead directly to Rikyū’s two-mat Taian. Jōō laid the architectural foundation of wabi-cha.

Wamono in the Utensils

Jōō actively introduced wamono into a utensil setting previously centered on karamono:

• Mizusashi (water jar) — Shigaraki onioke (demon-bucket) water jar, Bizen water jars
• Chaire (tea container) — Seto tea containers (“Jōō Seto”)
• Hanaire (flower vase) — Bamboo vases, Iga ware
• Kensui (waste-water bowl) — Bent-wood kensui
• Chashaku (tea scoop) — Self-made bamboo chashaku (tomozutsu)

The “Jōō Nasu” — a Seto tea container based on a karamono nasu — is a symbol of raising the standing of wamono to be treasured alongside its Chinese model.

Sen no Rikyū — Completer of Wabi-Cha

Sen no Rikyū (1522-1591) is the tea master who consummated wabi-cha — the sage of tea. His original name was Tanaka Yoshirō, and his later religious name was Sōeki. On the 13th year of Tenshō (1585), the retired Emperor Ōgimachi bestowed on him the “Rikyū koji” title.

Born the son of a fishmonger Tanaka Yohei of Sakai, he studied shoin-style tea under Kitamuki Dōchin and later entered the door of Takeno Jōō. As chatō to Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi he stood at the center of power, and established the two-mat tea room “Taian,” Raku bowls, and bamboo hanaire — the vocabulary at the core of chadō thereafter.

The Life of Rikyū

Year	Event	Note
1522	Born to a Sakai fishmonger	Tanaka Yoshirō
ca. 1538	Studies shoin-style tea under Kitamuki Dōchin	Age 17
ca. 1540	Enters Takeno Jōō’s door	Age 19
ca. 1554	Zen practice at Daitoku-ji, takes name Sōeki	Daitoku-ji Shōrei Sōkin
1569	Becomes chatō to Oda Nobunaga	Together with Imai Sōkyū and Tsuda Sōgyū
1582	Honnō-ji Incident, serves Hideyoshi	Age 60
1585	Imperial tea; Rikyū koji title bestowed	Age 64
1586	Designs Hideyoshi’s Golden Tea Room	Contradiction with wabi
1587	Great Kitano Tea Gathering	Large-scale tea
1591	Ordered to ritual suicide	Age 70, 2/28

Rikyū’s Creations — Completion of Wabi-Cha

Rikyū’s achievements span the architecture, utensils, and gesture of wabi-cha:

Architecture

• Extreme small rooms of two or three mats — a further compression of Jōō’s four-and-a-half mats
• Nijiri-guchi — the small entrance one enters bent over. Even samurai remove their swords to enter
• Development of the shitaji-mado
• Tsuchi-doko — earthen floor for the tokonoma

Utensils

• Tea bowls — Raku bowls (black and red) made under his direction by Chōjirō, valued Ido bowls
• Chaire — Valued wamono (Seto, Bizen) chaire over karamono
• Chashaku — Self-made bamboo chashaku, node in the center
• Hanaire — Ichijū-giri bamboo vase, invented the woven-basket vase
• Kaiseki — Simplification to a single-soup, three-side-dish menu, seasonality
• Gesture — A fresh temae purged of unnecessary movement

Paring away was pursued relentlessly. Jukō’s “blurring the boundary between wa and kan” deepened into Rikyū’s “pare everything down to one.”

Taian — The Only Extant Rikyū Tea Room

Taian is a two-mat tea room at Myōki-an in Yamazaki, Kyoto. National Treasure, and considered the only extant tea room by Rikyū (attribution is debated, but it is certain that it was made under his direction):

• Only two mats; the tokonoma is about half a mat
• Nijiri-guchi — 66 cm high, 60 cm wide, an extremely small entrance
• Mud walls, rough straw walls
• Light from the shitaji-mado

“The material embodiment of wabi-cha at the extreme.” Modern architects call it one of the treasures of Japanese architecture.

The Seven Rules and Wa-Kei-Sei-Jaku

Rikyū’s teaching, the Rikyū shichisoku (Seven Rules):

1. Make the tea so it is pleasing to drink
2. Lay the coals so the water boils
3. Cool in summer, warm in winter
4. Arrange the flowers as they are in the field
5. Set an earlier hour than needed
6. Prepare an umbrella even in fine weather
7. Care for your fellow guest

They may look obvious, but they teach the difficulty of “consistently doing the obvious.” “Arrange the flowers as they are in the field” is the wabi-cha view of arranging flowers, standing against the artificial beauty of formal flower arrangement.

Wa-kei-sei-jaku — harmony, respect, purity, tranquility — is said to have been set out by Rikyū, but is more likely a later coinage in the Edo-era tea book [Nanpōroku]. It is nevertheless received today as a concise expression of Rikyū’s spirit.

Hideyoshi and Rikyū — The Duet of Wabi and Splendor

Rikyū and Hideyoshi were not a simple opposition. On one hand Hideyoshi ordered a Golden Tea Room built; on the other, at the Great Kitano Tea Gathering (1587), he promoted wabi-cha, and Rikyū’s “wabi” and Hideyoshi’s “splendor” coexisted. Rikyū was even involved in the design of the Golden Tea Room.

• 1586 — The Golden Tea Room (fully gold-leaf, for Hideyoshi’s visit to the Imperial Palace)
• 1587 — The Great Kitano Tea Gathering (at Kitano Tenmangū in Kyoto, hosted by Hideyoshi, with about 800 seats from across the country)

The two shared more than ten years of deep spiritual ties through tea. The path from that relationship’s collapse to Rikyū’s ritual suicide has been described again and again as a dramatic intersection of culture and power at the end of the Warring States — Inoue Yasushi’s [Honkaku-bō ibun], Nogami Yaeko’s [Hideyoshi and Rikyū], and others.

1591 — The Mystery of the Ritual Suicide

On the 28th day of the 2nd month, the 19th year of Tenshō (1591), on Hideyoshi’s order, Rikyū committed ritual suicide at his residence in the Jurakudai. He was 70. The cause is unresolved:

Various Theories

• Daitoku-ji sanmon theory — Rikyū’s wooden image at the Daitoku-ji Kinmōkaku was regarded as sacrilegious
• Tea utensils sales theory — High-priced dealings in utensils drew Hideyoshi’s anger
• Political conflict theory — The conflict between the Ishida Mitsunari faction and the Rikyū faction within Hideyoshi’s government, and opposition to the invasion of Korea
• Daughter O-gin theory — Hideyoshi wanted Rikyū’s daughter as a concubine; Rikyū refused (low credibility)
• Aesthetic conflict theory — The fundamental clash between Hideyoshi’s love of splendor and Rikyū’s love of wabi

In fact the causes were likely composite. After Rikyū’s suicide, the wooden image at the Daitoku-ji sanmon was handed over and crucified.

“The completer of wabi commits ritual suicide at the pinnacle of power” — a strange conclusion. It has been retold across 400 years as a story where “the pinnacle of tea” and “the pinnacle of power” meet and break.

What Rikyū Left Behind

Family

Rikyū’s wife Sōon was the daughter of the renga master Miyaō Hōan; his spiritual partner. His eldest son Dōan was born of his first wife, and his second son Shōan was Sōon’s child by another marriage, adopted by Rikyū. Shōan’s son Sōtan became the ancestor of the three Sen houses.

Disciples — The Three Tea Masters Under Heaven and the Seven Disciples

• Under Jōō, the three tea masters under heaven — Sen no Rikyū, Imai Sōkyū (Nobunaga’s chatō), Tsuda Sōgyū
• Rikyū’s seven senior disciples — Hosokawa Sansai, Furuta Oribe, Gamō Ujisato, Shibayama Kenmotsu, Seta Kamon, Takayama Ukon, Makimura Hyōbu (theories vary)

These lineages develop into the Edo-era three Sen houses and warrior tea, forming the skeleton of modern chadō.

From This Article to the Next

We have traced Rikyū, the completer of wabi-cha. The next article turns to what came after his death — the Seven Senior Disciples and the development of daimyo tea. Especially the beauty of the irregular of Furuta Oribe (1544-1615) and the kirei-sabi of Kobori Enshū (1579-1647) — the tea of the early Edo, moving from the strictness of wabi to a flair suitable for daimyo.