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Post by Atsumori on Jul 1, 2017 17:10:28 GMT -5
Also, you will note that the two monastic kitchens are really the same picture. They may even be from the same physical scroll. More likely they are from two different copies. Some picture scrolls such as the Shuhan scroll were copied multiple times. Good observation of the scenes. They are in fact different scans of the same scroll i believe . It is a scene in a series of scrolls which have several great cooking scenes. you can find scans of all of them here. dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/2590855?tocOpened=1 I don't remember what volumes the exact painting is in but there are only ten so it shouldn't be to hard to find. Also i think if you made the wooden hearth disassembleable it might be a fun piece to cook with and still just as portable as a tent.
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Post by solveig on Jul 2, 2017 21:06:34 GMT -5
It was a broken furo of this type that Rikyū adapted for use with his (second) small unryū-gama (after he presented the original one to Hideyoshi, together with Nobunaga’s old Temmyō kimen-buro for which it had been made, for use in the two mat wabi-style tearoom in his Yamazato-maru complex), in imitation of those his son Dōan was making out of discarded Nara- and mayu-buro. Actually, I am rather fond of unryugama and own one. Unryugama are named after the depiction of a dragon flying though clouds on the their side. They are cylindrical and have a distinctive lid which is little more than plate with a wire loop in the enter. They are traditionally used at the end of ro (sunken hearth) season and are traditionally suspended from the ceiling either with a jizai or a chain. However, yes they can be placed on a gotoku inside a furo (portable hearth). There are actually three "levels" of furo in the world of tea and as I recall the metal furo is the bottom. Yes, they are always set on flat ceramic plates. I suppose that they originated with something else when people started using them, but they have been used for rather a long time. If you think about it, ceramic plates are much more practical for use with metallic furo than the lacquered wooden boards used with ceramic furo. I suppose that the top level smooth somewhat shiny black furo are lacquered. (I can probably look it up easily enough in one of the books I have sitting around here.)
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Post by Bun'ami on Jul 3, 2017 20:03:46 GMT -5
The problem is that the fellow who is depicting making tea could never make tea in a tenmoku-jawan sitting on a tenmoku-dai as depicted in the picture. I own that type of chawan and the accompanying stand. I have prepared tea using that type of equipment. You can not do it as depicted in the picture. OK, I take it back He is not using a tenmoku-jawan. He is using a rather ordinary chawan which may not be impossible, but still somewhat unlikely Dearest Solveig, Sometimes you baffle me with your replies. The screen in question was being made around 1540. The modern tea ceremony doesn't exist. The Urasenke school of tea doesn't exist. Sen no Rikyū was just starting as a disciple of Takeno Jōō, the rules he sets forth do not exist. The subject in question is a street vendor, making and selling tea to those at the maple viewing party. He is not following the rules of tea set forth in future, because they doesn't exist yet. TNM: In the foreground, the screens portray monks and well-dressed men and women enjoying food and drink beneath brilliant maples by the shores of the Kiyotaki River in TakaoHe is just a common street vendor, boiling water, whisking ground green tea (yes, if you look closely he has a chasen or a precursor to the chasen) in a common bowl (chawan or any drinking bowl he can get his hands on), and selling it to whomever will buy. He has at least on customer drinking it. The only other possibility is that he is mixing herbal medication, but seeing that this is a maple viewing party, I doubt that very much. Bun'ami
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Post by solveig on Jul 4, 2017 0:38:22 GMT -5
Sometimes you baffle me with your replies. The screen in question was being made around 1540. The modern tea ceremony doesn't exist. The Urasenke school of tea doesn't exist. Sen no Rikyū was just starting as a disciple of Takeno Jōō, the rules he sets forth do not exist. You aren't reading what I actually write or listening to what I actually say. I wrote nothing about formalized tea ritual. I wrote about having experience actually making tea. Also, Rikyū actually greatly simplified tea procedure. The big wigs in the military class were very much into exotic equipment imported from China and Korea, using daisu, and all sorts of other stuff. Oddly, the three contemporary Sen schools actually teach the most stripped down Rikyū style of tea to their students first, and then follow it with instruction in earlier styles and in various styles invented by named iemoto during the centuries that followed. I wrote nothing at all about "rules". I wrote simply about matcha style tea. The guy is standing up while doing it. That would in my opinion be seriously difficult. I contend that the artist was not particularly familiar with tea actually being made. For some reason, I initially thought that he was trying to do it with a tenmoku jawan (which were popular at the time) which would be extraordinarily difficult while standing. Specialized bowls for drinking appear to be pretty much a creature of the tea cult and are historically derived from herbal medicine. If you want a common bowl, then I suggest a rice bowl. A fair amount of drinking in Japan was from a variety of wooden, bamboo, and other plant based containers such as dippers, &c. The carpenters which Sei Shonagon complained about in the Pillow Book were not served a separate beverage at all. They were served: rice, soup, and a side dish. I am confident that the ever observant Sei Shonagon would have found cause to complain about how they quaffed beverages if a separate beverage had been served.
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Post by Bun'ami on Jul 4, 2017 12:38:55 GMT -5
You aren't reading what I actually write or listening to what I actually say. I wrote nothing about formalized tea ritual. True, you did not write about formalized tea ritual, but it was the only explanation I could conceive of when you stated that it was impossible or extremely difficult for the man in the maple viewing screen to make matcha tea. I do not agree with all of this nor do any of the books or resources I have. Yes, the tea parties you refer to were ostentatious, referred to as chaji (茶事, full tea gathering), lots of food, drinking of sake, showing off of exotic and expensive items, equipment, and paintings, games of guessing where the tea was from, etc., but the actual "making" of the tea did not include the ritual purification set, the cleansing of the chawan, nor any of the other ritualistic steps of the modern tea ceremony, it was described much like the man in the maple viewing screen. This is not difficult at all, it is quite easy. I did it again this morning. You should try it. I put on a pot of hot water, hold your ordinary chawan in your left hand, dumped in some matcha, ladle on some hot water, whisk it up with a chasen, then drink (or serve, like the man in the maple viewing screen or those who prepared tea at the ostentatious parties, chaji ). So easy it took less than 30 secs to make a cup of tea. Just like the man in the maple viewing screen. When you compare the actual 'making' of the tea as describe above compared to Rikyū's formalized rituals of 'making' tea, Rikyū's is much more complex, not simplified at all, he just simplified the "party" part; no fancy feast, no shelves stuffed with rare and expensive items, no showing of rare and expensive paintings, no posturing about how important you are, etc.. Most sources site the basara (a pre- chaji that often included gambling), then after it was prohibited, the chaji (茶事, full tea gathering) of Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, where the tea was made in the backroom, this 'making' of matcha tea was just a simple as the description above of the man making matcha tea in the maple viewing screen. This is why I am baffled by your replies. My assumption was that you were incorporating Rikyū's formalized rituals of making matcha tea into a pre-dated situation to justify the impossibility of the man making matcha tea in the maple viewing screen.
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Post by solveig on Jul 5, 2017 16:19:44 GMT -5
True, you did not write about formalized tea ritual, but it was the only explanation I could conceive of when you stated that it was impossible or extremely difficult for the man in the maple viewing screen to make matcha tea. I contend that it is quite difficult to prepare matcha in the manner depicted in the painting. If you persist in disputing this, then I urge you to demonstrate tea making as shown in the picture. My opinion in this matter has nothing to do with ceremonial wiping of tea containers. Neither does the "actual 'making' of the tea" as practiced by the Sen schools involve much more than the final movement when removing the chasen from the bowl. In the Urasenke tradition, a particular shape is drawn with the chasen when it is removed. The rest is pretty much just vigorous whisking for thin tea and kneading for thick tea. There is a particular pattern that people are taught for both of these, but they are pretty straightforward. You are going to have a hard time finding a more vigorous whisking pattern than the W pattern which is taught. The kneading pattern relates to the need to sort of scrape tea from the sides of the bowl while you are preparing the tea. Regardless, the whole point of temae in tea and kata in martial arts is so that you do not have to spend all your time fussing over details during your practice. As for "chaji". The term as currently used today refers to a gathering which includes a formal meal followed by both thick and thin tea. These are actually quite rare in the modern tea world. I happened to study chaji and was invited to a nightime chaji as a result. OK - I will give you credit for experimenting. However, your setup is radically different from the one that the fellow in the picture had. The edge of the kama was maybe 2 feet above ground level. I do not recall even seeing a ladle in the picture. Nor is there a tea container visible. As for dumping tea. Unless you have premeasured packets (a modern convenience), then you will most likely need a titration device which I also do not recall seeing in the picture. I still contend that whoever painted the picture was not particularly familiar with tea. Where were your various implements and ingredients? I wager that your hot water was either in an electric unit sitting on a table or higher still in a kettle on the stove. Your other implements were also ready to hand in your standing position. Since tea was to a large degree a plaything of the rich and well connected, what is your point? I counter argue that tea was adopted by the military class as something to correspond to the role of incense in the aristocratic class. Others have made a similar observation about how the military class embraced noh and kyogen. Basically, just having a tough army didn't count for a lot in East Asia. You also had to exhibit cultural attainment to enjoy the "mandate of heaven". If you need a European referent, think about the patronage of the church and the role of princes of the church in kingmaking. These were exercises in conspicuous non-consumption by members of the power elite. They can be compared to such things as the potlatch among the PNW coastal Indians. A common practice was to try to guess "the true tea of uji". This is comparable to incense games where you are supposed to guess which of several incense samples match the first sample. There are a number of other incense games. (Did I mention that I formally studied incense and have a couple of kyojo for that as well?) And, I continue to contend that the painting is unrealistic. In your little tea experiment, was your tea located about a foot above ground in a chest? Where was the tea stored in the picture? Regardless, the tea of Rikyu is quite simple. He is the fellow that insisted that tea is little more than boiling water and serving tea. I really do not understand the Rikyu bashing that is going on here. There are well known and much discussed reasons to fault the various modern tea schools. Urasenke is frequently accused of being far too concerned with rare and expensive tea equipment. (I deliberately chose a name for my 'style' of tea in repudiation of that tendency. I also privately refer to my collection of tea implements as "tea garbage" for the same reason.) Tea teachers in general are famous in Japan for being at best fussy and overly strict. So, if your mission is to somehow find fault with contemporary tea, I can easily out do you in that regard. However, to imagine that you are going to faithfully recreate premodern tea from that picture is in my opinion delusional.
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Post by solveig on Jul 6, 2017 22:33:51 GMT -5
Perhaps the fellow who originated this discussion feels like it has been hijacked. Regardless, here are a couple of resources for him specifically should he still be reading this discussion. Thirty years ago I bought a book specifically about the historical development of Japanese kitchens. It is part of a series about Japanese detail architecture. There is a book just about toilets, a book just about windows, &c. Regardless, here is the ISBN: 4-306-09294-1 I am not insisting that anyone buy this book, but it is illustrated and the period part is pages 1-44. There may be a copy at a library near your, or you may be able to access it through interlibrary loan. Another item which may be of interest is a painting of a premodern camp kitchen which is the cover illustration for another book that I own. Here is what it looks like:
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