Who was this person?
A merchant of Sakai and tea master of the Sengoku period. He studied waka and renga in Kyoto under Sanjōnishi Sanetaka, then took the tonsure and the name Jōō. Carrying on the tea of Murata Jukō, he deepened a calm, unadorned wabi-cha shaped by the spirit of poetry, and is said to have trained pupils such as Sen no Rikyū. One theory places his birth in Yamato Province.
| Name | Takeno Jōō (武野紹鴎) |
|---|---|
| Born–died | 1502 – 1555 |
| Period | Sengoku period |
| Main achievements |
|
He was born in Yoshino in Yamato; his childhood name was Shōkikumaru. According to the family genealogy he descended from the Takeda of Wakasa; after his grandfather died in battle, his father Nobuhisa wandered from place to place and changed the family name to Takeno. His father eventually settled in Sakai in Izumi and grew rich dealing in leather and armor.
Leaving his father, he began living at Shijō on Muromachi Street in Kyoto. A record shows that the following year he took part in a renga gathering. He is said to have worked as a renga poet until about the age of thirty, refining his sense of the sound of words and of the seasons. This experience later shaped his idea of beauty in the tea ceremony.
He called on the court noble Sanjōnishi Sanetaka, the leading man of culture of the day, visiting often with fine gifts to learn waka and the classics. From Sanetaka he learned that good poems need both steady practice and one's own fresh invention, and he was taught the preface of Fujiwara no Teika's Eika no taigai. He is said to have applied this spirit to the tea ceremony.
He took the tonsure under Kogaku Sōkō at Daitoku-ji in Kyoto and received the name Jōō. At the time, conflict between followers of Jōdo Shinshū and the Hokke sect was growing fierce in Kyoto and Sakai. Because his father had ties to Jōdo Shinshū, some think he turned to Zen out of fear of being drawn into the strife.
He moved back to his home town of Sakai. At Nanshū-ji in Sakai, a branch temple of Daitoku-ji, he practiced Zen under the monk Dairin Sōtō and called himself Daikokuan. Sakai was a rich town that prospered from overseas trade and was governed by its own townspeople. Jōō became known both as a great merchant and as a master of the tea ceremony.
Around this time, it is said, he visited the Matsuya lacquer dealers in Nara, saw a beautiful painting of a white heron displayed there, and grasped the spirit of Murata Jukō's tea. Jukō had deliberately replaced its splendid mounting with a plain one. The story goes that Jōō found the deep flavor of tea in this pairing of splendor and restraint.
Records show that he invited the Nara lacquerer and tea man Matsuya Hisamasa and two others to a tea gathering, hung an ink painting by the Chinese artist Yujian in the alcove, and used the famous tea jar Matsushima, a Chinese import. While treasuring fine pieces from China, he brought the spirit of waka into tea, and is said to be the first to hang written waka in the tearoom.
Records show that he invited the great Sakai merchant Tsuda Sōtatsu and others to tea and used a famous eggplant-shaped tea caddy. Jōō is said to have devised tearooms smaller than four and a half mats, calling them wabi rooms. Pairing fine utensils with a modest room was an important step toward the later wabi-cha.
There is a record of another tea gathering this year for Tsuda Sōtatsu and others. Imai Sōkyū and Tsuda Sōgyū of Sakai, as well as Sen no Rikyū, are said to have studied under Jōō. Rikyū is said to have remarked that he learned technique from Jōō and the Way from Jukō, and through his pupils Jōō's tea spread across the land.
He died suddenly in Sakai and was buried at Nanshū-ji. In his last years he had also received a court rank. A later story claims he was poisoned by Oda Nobunaga, but at that time Nobunaga had not yet even secured Owari, and the tale is considered baseless. Jōō's tea was brought to completion as wabi-cha by his pupil Rikyū.
A. A merchant of Sakai and tea master of the Sengoku period. He studied waka and renga in Kyoto under Sanjōnishi Sanetaka, then took the tonsure and the name Jōō. Carrying on the tea of Murata Jukō, he deepened a calm, unadorned wabi-cha shaped by the spirit of poetry, and is said to have trained pupils such as Sen no Rikyū. One theory places his birth in Yamato Province.
A. Period: Sengoku period. Born in 1502, died in 1555.
A. Rikyū is said to have studied tea under Jōō in his youth. Jōō's simple, calm approach to tea, drawing on the spirit of poetry, was refined further by Rikyū and brought to completion as wabi-cha.
See also: Wikipedia (ja) / Wikipedia (en) / Wikipedia (fr) / Wikipedia (zh) / Wikidata
Follow this life (autoplay)Sanjōnishi SanetakaImai SōkyūSen no RikyūOda Nobunaga
Saitō DōsanTakeda NobutoraTaigen SessaiMōri MotonariFrancis XavierŌuchi YoshitakaMatsunaga HisahideTachibana Dōsetsu
People of the Sengoku/Azuchi-Momoyama period ・ People by period
Based on facts found in textbooks and biographies. Uncertain points are marked as such.