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context: ceramics > tea ceremony > raku
Tanaka Chojiro, 1516-92
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Chojiro's black Raku tea bowl called Kasujishi |
Not too much is known with any certainty about the man who established the Raku line. It seems likely that the first black raku (not that it was then called that) was made around 1550 by his mother, Teirin - this was rather like older black Seto wares. Chojiro, who may have been Chinese or Korean, worked under instruction from the great tea master Sen no Rikyu, producing rather crude-looking bowls with black or red glazes (including clear glaze on red clay). Their adoption by Rikyu made them famous, guaranteeing their place in history. Chojiro's work and that of the line that followed him became central to Japanese aesthetics, in ceramics and beyond.
The name came when his son Jokei was awarded a seal bearing the character 'raku' by shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi. It means something like ease, joy, pleasure.