Japanese Tea: Philosophy and Etiquette
5 November • 18:30 (UTC+1) • Online • FREE
LANGUAGE: RUSSIAN
LANGUAGE: RUSSIAN
For four hundred years the Japanese tea ceremony has taught people to value poverty, simplicity and imperfection, and for all that time a small clay tea jar could be worth more than an entire province.
The lecture covers:
HOW TEA CAME TO JAPAN AS A MEDICINE: the monk Eisai, powdered tea from China and a shogun treated with tea for a hangover, and why tea was bound up with Zen Buddhism from the very beginning.
TEA AS GAMBLING AND LUXURY: contests in which guests identified teas by taste and placed high stakes, and the Chinese tea wares samurai collected to outdo one another in wealth.
WABI: how Murata Jukō and Sen no Rikyū transformed the drinking of tea.
RIKYU AND HIDEYOSHI: the golden tea room versus the clay hut.
ETIQUETTE: why the bowl is turned before drinking, why a guest is expected to ask about every object in the room, and what ‘one meeting' has to do with it.
1868: how did the tea ceremony survive?
SPEAKER. Alexander Sheremetev is an art historian and researcher specialising in the symbolism, ornament and visual culture of Japan. He has worked with museums for over twenty years, curating private and public collections, developing university courses and advising private projects. He lectures and writes, situating aesthetic form within its historical, philosophical and structural context.
HOW TEA CAME TO JAPAN AS A MEDICINE: the monk Eisai, powdered tea from China and a shogun treated with tea for a hangover, and why tea was bound up with Zen Buddhism from the very beginning.
TEA AS GAMBLING AND LUXURY: contests in which guests identified teas by taste and placed high stakes, and the Chinese tea wares samurai collected to outdo one another in wealth.
WABI: how Murata Jukō and Sen no Rikyū transformed the drinking of tea.
RIKYU AND HIDEYOSHI: the golden tea room versus the clay hut.
ETIQUETTE: why the bowl is turned before drinking, why a guest is expected to ask about every object in the room, and what ‘one meeting' has to do with it.
1868: how did the tea ceremony survive?
SPEAKER. Alexander Sheremetev is an art historian and researcher specialising in the symbolism, ornament and visual culture of Japan. He has worked with museums for over twenty years, curating private and public collections, developing university courses and advising private projects. He lectures and writes, situating aesthetic form within its historical, philosophical and structural context.