C hinese goods imported to Japan, karamono, held for centuries a very special place in Japanese culture.1 This found expression not only in the fact that the Japanese language has this special term to denominate them, but particularly in the Japanese tradition to treat art objects with the greatest respect, to look after them, even when damaged, and to hand them down, reverentially, over centuries.
Ceramics everywhere in the world started as cheap household wares for daily use and as burial goods to replicate more costly materials, but as soon as tea drinking became popular and developed into a cult in China in the Tang dynasty (618-907), certain ceramics began to acquire a status far above that of practical utensils. Tea connoisseurs began to take note of the vessels the beverage was served in, distinguished between the wares from different kilns, and expressed preferences. The appreciation of ceramics has long remained connected with ritual tea drinking, often in a Buddhist context.
Tea drinking had reached Japan from China by the eighth century. The Japanese monk Eichū, returning from a lengthy stay in the Chinese capital Chang’an (Xi’an) is recorded to have brought back tea from China and to have served the beverage himself to Emperor Saga (r. 809-23) in 815. Thereafter, tea was regularly consumed at Buddhist temples and at important court functions, and around the ninth century already tea began to be enjoyed in special rooms, to accompany gatherings where poetry was recited or composed and music performed. Its distribution, however, was probably still very limited.
Chinese goods imported to Japan, karamono, held for centuries a very special place in Japanese culture [… they] were not only displayed with great consideration but would also be used in the celebrated cultural activities of chadō, tea ceremony, kōdō, incense culture, and kadō, flower arrangement.
In the Kamakura period (1185-1333) tea drinking grew widely in popularity. It was again Japanese monks who propagated the practise of ritual drinking of whipped tea (matcha), which they brought to Japan from South Chinese monasteries together with the utensils used in tea gatherings. The priest Eisai (1141-1215), who travelled to China twice in the late twelfth century, has traditionally been credited with the introduction to Japan of the tea ceremony, where powdered tea is whipped to a froth in hot water. He is also associated with the introduction to Japan of the black-glazed Jian ware tea bowls, encountered at Chan Buddhist monasteries on Tianmushan, a scenic mountain in Lin’an, west of Hangzhou. The Japanese pronunciation of Tianmu, tenmoku or temmoku, became the general denominator of Jian tea bowls not only in Japan but also in the West. Even though both the Fujian tea bowls, which came from the same region as some of the finest teas, and the practice of ritual tea gatherings are now known to have been introduced to Japan already earlier, Eisai nevertheless appears to have been influential in making them widely known. From the twelfth century onwards, Chinese ceramics were used in Japanese temples as well as in noble households.
Black wares had traditionally not been held in high esteem in China, as in the Tang period the more dazzling silver-like white and jade-like green wares had been preferred, especially for tea. The fact that Jian ware bowls with their near-black bodies and glazes, thickly potted from cheap raw materials and without any decoration, were utensils of humble aspect, almost certainly contributed to make them the vessels of choice in Zen temples. Tea was used for its medicinal benefits, to invigorate the body, but tea drinking was also meant to concentrate the mind, to focus attention on higher objectives, and to help in the achievement of enlightenment. Tenmoku bowls were clearly considered to serve this purpose exceptionally well.
[Karamono] were markers of status and assembling impressive collections of paintings, calligraphy, and finely crafted objects was both a privilege and obligation of those who ruled.
They seem to have been already much in use in the eleventh century. Cai Xiang (1012-67), scholar-official and poet, native of Fujian, called to the capital by Emperor Renzong (r. 1022-63), mentions black bowls with a pattern like hare’s fur in his Cha lu (The record of tea) and would probably have made them known at court, if they were not known there already. In his Treatise on Tea, written in 1107, the passionate art and tea connoisseur, Emperor Huizong (r. 1100-26), who particularly appreciated the tribute teas from Fujian, recommended as tea bowls those with dark bluish-black glaze and hare’s-fur markings. Jian tea bowls are recorded in Japan already in a document datable no later than 1333.2
Influence of Chinese art grew even further during the Muromachi period (1333-1573). Rousmaniere states that “Chinese ceramics, from the medieval period onwards, were an integral part of social life, especially for the nobility; they were present in Buddhist temples and rituals and also in the residences of the samurai class and increasingly the wealthy merchant class.”3 The Ashikaga shoguns, the de-facto rulers of Japan who were basically warriors, became major patrons of the arts. Chinese goods were markers of status and “assembling impressive collections of paintings, calligraphy, and finely crafted objects was both a privilege and obligation of those who ruled”.4
Emperor Yongle (r. 1403-24) repeatedly exchanged lavish gifts with the Japanese shogun. Official gifts consisted largely of silks and silver ware, but recorded are also special presents of incense burners, vases, and bowls, which could include antiques, as well as ancient paintings and calligraphies. A list of 1406, for example, mentions a gift of ten Jian bowls with gilt-bronze mounted rim and foot, a type of ceramics no longer produced at the time.5 A record of items that the Xuande Emperor (r. 1426-35) bestowed on the Japanese shogun and his consort in 1433 lists “forty gold-decorated bowls, complete with stands”.6 Since pieces of silver ware are separately mentioned on that list, this may also refer to ancient Jian tea bowls with contemporary lacquer stands, both highly appreciated in Japan. Hsieh Ming-liang has suggested that some of the most famous Jian tea bowls, which were declared National Treasures in Japan, such as the famous yōhen bowl in the Seikadō Bunko collection, Tokyo, may represent imperial gifts from China.7
The Japanese pronunciation of Tianmu, tenmoku or temmoku, became the general denominator of Jian tea bowls [… they ] were utensils of humble aspect, almost certainly contributed to make them the vessels of choice in Zen temples.
To exhibit their collections, the nobility had special guest halls built as spaces for receptions where poetry was composed and music performed, and where incense competitions, flower displays and tea judgings were held. Usually, they were furnished with display shelves for objects and a display alcove, tokonoma, for the temporary exhibition of Chinese hanging scrolls, a format that had been uncommon in Japan. In 1437, the Japanese shogun put on a display for a visit by the emperor that included the staggering amount of forty-one Jian bowls and four ‘oil spots’, whose ownership unquestionably signified his power and wealth.8 Two sixteenth-century handscrolls entitled Records of Arrangement in the Shogunal Guest Hall and Arrangements for Reception Room Display depict displays of tea bowls and other objects on shelves and in front of hanging scrolls.9 Such presentations of Chinese artefacts (karamono) provided the setting for tea gatherings with whipped tea, chanoyu, for honoured guests. According to Kawai Masatomo, “It is here that we find the development of art appreciation centred on objects produced in China.”10 The setting-in-scene of exquisite works of art was perfected in Japan to a fine art.
From the fifteenth century onwards, guest-hall companions, quasi curators in charge of Chinese goods in Japanese collections, were employed in elite households, who looked after the artefacts, oversaw their temporary display, and classified works according to desirability for the collection. A document of 1476 discussing the shogun’s collection includes two sections on Chinese ceramics, one on brown and black-glazed wares and one on guan ware. The former is listed as suitable for the shogunal collection only three types of tenmoku bowls: yōhen (‘iridescent’, a type known only from three examples), yuteki (‘oil spot’), and kensan (standard Jian), continuing to record various other ‘unsuitable’ types.11 Like the Jian tea bowls, guan incense burners might have come to Japan as imperial gifts.
Karamono could cover a wide range of items in different materials, including Chinese paintings and calligraphies, ceramic incense burners, tea bowls, tea caddies, water vessels, flower vases and containers for penjing (miniature trees), lacquer bowl stands, food boxes, trays and small tables, and all sorts of metal items. Karamono were not only displayed with great consideration but would also be used in the celebrated cultural activities of chadō, tea ceremony, kōdō, incense culture, and kadō, flower arrangement. Fine Chinese textiles served for wrapping the items.
If damage nevertheless occurred to a handed-down item, it is taken as part of its individual history, like a dramatic event in a biography that does not need to be hidden.
Over time, karamono, as well as their display, became ever more luxurious. Tea wares of course developed far beyond Jian tea bowls and eventually included Jingdezhen polychrome porcelains as well as non-Chinese wares, and the term karamono came to cover any foreign goods, and even Japanese goods in foreign style. In Japanese consciousness, however, tea drinking remained closely associated with the simple surroundings of the Zen (Chan) temples and monasteries of the Song dynasty. Even if rooms could be fitted out in great splendour, the ‘three sacred objects’, incense burner, flower vase and candle holder, generally placed in front of a hanging scroll, had their origins in the equipment of Buddhist temple halls. This eventually brought about a re-focus to a form of tea ceremony, wabi-cha, that favours rustic simplicity free from luxurious accoutrements, and emphasizes the spiritual aspect. The spiritual importance of these objects in Japan is vividly captured in a story recorded about a highly cultured Japanese feudal lord who in 1361 had to flee before the attacks of an enemy army. “Before leaving he hung a Buddhist painting on the wall of the twelve-mat guest hall of his lodging, and in front of it he set out a flower vase, incense burner, and even a kettle and a tray. In the desk-alcove (shoin) he displayed calligraphy by Wang Xizhi (307?-365?) and Han Tuizhi (768-824)”.12
Japanese art collectors have always taken their responsibility as guardians of cultural relics extremely seriously. Chinese antiques tend to be artfully – and safely – packed in paulownia wood or lacquer boxes, ideally in two or three nesting boxes. Linings are shaped after the contour of the object, which preferably is enveloped in silk to protect and enhance its sheen. The boxes, tightly fitted, with just enough space for a pouch, shifuku, or a wrapping cloth, furoshiki, in between, are tied with a ribbon, fastened with a special bow, so that the inner ones can be easily taken out and the outer one safely carried. The un- and re-wrapping becomes a ceremony in itself, one that is mastered nowhere like in Japan. If damage nevertheless occurred to a handed-down item, it is taken as part of its individual history, like a dramatic event in a biography that does not need to be hidden. A repair with gold lacquer, applied by a master craftsman, even adds a unique frisson that enhances the piece’s singularity.
1 Two important publications on the subject are Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, ed., Kazari. Decoration and Display in Japan, 15th-19th Centuries, The British Museum, London, 2002, and Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere, Vessels of Influence. China and the Birth of Porcelain in Medieval and Early Modern Japan, London, 2012.
2 Hsieh Ming-liang, ‘Song ren de taoci shangjian ji Jian zhan zhuanshi xiangguan wenti’, Taiwan Daxue meishu shi yanjiu jikan/The Aesthetic Appreciation of Porcelain in the Song Dynasty and a Discussion of the Spread of Jian Ware’, Taida Journal of Art History, 29, 2010, p. 83.
3 Rousmaniere 2012, p. 76.
4 John T. Carpenter, ‘China in Japan. The Shogun’s Court, 15th-16th Centuries’, in Rousmaniere 2002, p. 86.
5 Hsieh 2010, p. 85.
6 Wang Yi-t’ung, Official Relations Between China and Japan 1368-1549, Harvard-Yenching Institute Studies IX, Cambridge, Mass., 1953, foldout opposite p. 93.
7 Hsieh 2010, pp. 88f., with the bowl illustrated p. 111, figs 44 a and b.
8 Hsieh 2010, pp. 86f.
9 Rousmaniere 2002, cat. nos 4 and 5; and Rousmaniere 2012, p. 71, fig. 5.
10 Kawai Masatomo, ‘Reception Room Display in Medieval Japan’, in Rousmaniere 2002.
11 Rousmaniere 2012, p. 83.
12 Kawai in Rousmaniere 2002, p. 37.
