“Hearing with the Eyes”: Tea and Its Objects in Sixteenth-Century Japan
In 16th-century Japanese tea practice, or chanoyu—the pioneering performance art of its day—no greater accolade could be given to a practitioner than to be considered a mekiki, or a person who hears with their eyes. When evaluating the varied objects used in tea, a mekiki brought to bear not only visual acuity but also an ability to understand and to judge more profoundly than others. Focusing on extant tea ceramics and writings, this presentation examines how 16th-century tea men assessed and amplified the value of vessels they deemed excellent through the formulation of aesthetic criteria, the bestowal of proper names, and an inclination for anthropomorphic embrace.
This is the Genshitsu Sen Annual Tea Lecture.
Tea-leaf storage jar named Chigusa, China, mid-13th–mid-14th century. Stoneware with iron glaze. | National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, Freer Collection, Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment, F2016.20.1-5a-c.
About the Speaker
Andrew M. Watsky is the P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Professor in Japanese Art, emeritus, at Princeton University. His research focuses primarily on the 16th century, and his current work concerns the Japanese practice of drinking whisked tea and appreciating the diverse objects employed in its consumption. After completing a series of collaborative projects on the tea-leaf storage jar named Chigusa, he is now working on a monograph about tea objects recorded in the 1588 treatise The Records of Yamanoue no Sōji. His book Chikubushima: Deploying the Sacred Arts in Momoyama Japan (University of Washington Press, 2004) won both the Shimada Prize and the John Whitney Hall Book Prize. He previously taught at Vassar College.
