Born in 1719, Kawakami Fuhaku was a master of Japanese tea ceremony. Fuhaku was the second son of a vassal of the Mizuno family, who served the Tokugawa daimyo. At the age of sixteen, the young Fuhaku travelled to Kyoto to study under Joshinsai Tennen Sosa (1705–51), the seventh-generation head of the Omotesenke School. The school is one of the institutions in Japan dedicated to promoting the ‘Way of Tea’; it practices a distinctive style of whisking, which creates less foam on top of the tea. After his training, Fuhaku went to Edo (former Tokyo) where he promoted the Omotesenk-style tea ceremony and later established his own tea tradition known as the Fuhakuryu School.
This Nezu Museum exhibition covers a diverse range of topics, from Fuhaku’s position as a disciple of Joshinsai and his distinctive taste in utensils to his relationships with the various craftsmen who made those utensils and the daimyo lords whom he taught. This is a unique opportunity to explore the ‘Way of Tea’ through the life of Fuhaku and the philosophy behind his approach to tea, which was widely espoused throughout the latter half of the Edo period and into the modern times.