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Master
Kobori Soen, the 16th head of Tea School
descended from the 17th century, will visit Jordan to introduce the
cream of Japanese art in May. He and his best disciples
participate actively in art activities in and out of Japan and successfully
accomplished the demonstration in Uzbekistan in 1999. They will
arrange some demonstrations of Tea ceremony for Jordanian artists and
art lovers in order to further deepen the understanding of
Japan.
Tea Ceremony is not only a highly structured method of
preparing powdered green tea in the company of guests but also the
culmination of a union of artistic creativity, sensitivity to nature,
deep thought, and social interchange. Tea ceremony has been a
catalyst to develop the quintessence of various fields of Japanese
art, namely architecture, gardening, ceramics, calligraphy,
handicrafts, and Ikebana (flower arrangement).
The founder of the school, Kobori Enshu, was a feudal lord in the early 17th century. It was in
the Edo period, which gave Japan more than two centuries of peace
under the political system of shogun (head of the military
regime). The founder is the successor of great masters of Tea
ceremony who deepened the art from the 15th century, and he served as the
official instructor of Tea ceremony for the second and third
shogun. He had a gift for many areas of art in addition to Tea
ceremony. His most renowned talent was landscaping and
architecture, which represents Sento Gosho (Ex-Emperor's palace).
"Kirei Sabi" is the style that Kobori Enshu proposed
for Tea ceremony. "Kirei" represents the sense of
beauty refined in the court in the Heian period (794-1185) which is
sometimes expressed with a word of "splendid". On the
contrary, "Sabi" is a concept combining elements of
old age, loneliness, resignation, and tranquilly. His idea is an
endeavor to
unite styles of the court and the ascetic samurai
not rather than a retrospective movement.
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