Handmade Culture: Raku Potters, Patrons, and Tea Practitioners in Japan

4. Institutionalization of the Iemoto Gaze: Tea, Raku, and the Iemoto System

c h a p t e r f o u r The producer of the value of the work of art is not the artist but the field of production as a universe of belief which produces the value of the work of art as a fetish by producing the belief in the creative power of the artist . . . [T]he work of art does not exist as a symbolic object endowed with values unless it is known and recognized—that is to say, socially instituted as a work of art by spectators endowed with the aesthetic disposition and competence necessary to know it and recognize it as such . . . —Pierre Bourdieu, The Rules of Art Institutionalization of the Iemoto Gaze Tea, Raku, and the Iemoto System A hierarchical and familial system of social organization came to dominate many of the arts practiced throughout the Japanese archipelago in the eighteenth century. Tea schools, painting ateliers, performing-arts troupes, and numerous other associations adopted this mode of organization, known in the scholarly literature as the iemoto system.The term literally means “origin of the household” but is often translated as “family head.” In this system, the patriarch of the organization—the iemoto—instituted new standards for training , accreditation, membership, practice, and even aesthetic taste. He defined the terms of practice for all members of the school. The claim of belonging to a familial group and the acquisition of skills offered by iemoto organizations proved extremely popular, and many existing tea schools saw their memberPitelka04 89 7/22/05 9:40:47 AM 90 | handmade culture ships rise dramatically. By the end of the eighteenth century, some had expanded throughout the archipelago, regulating large populations of amateur tea practitioners through a unified curriculum and system of licensing. The development of iemoto structures of organization in tea culture affected the Raku tradition in two areas. The Raku workshop enjoyed increased patronage from the leaders of the Sen tea schools, who adopted the iemoto system. They not only commissioned ceramics in large quantities, but became amateur potters themselves under the guidance of the Raku ceramists. As the aesthetic decisions of the iemoto became encoded as part of the approved practice of Sen tea, demand for Raku ceramics increased among practitioners. However, the Raku workshop did not adopt the structure of an iemoto organization. Instead, the Raku potters were incorporated into the larger iemoto system of the Sen tea schools, developing extremely close relations with the Omotesenke school in particular, and eventually acquired the status of disciples. Letters and ceramics produced by the Sen iemoto and the Raku potters illustrate the growing formalization of their relationship concomitant to the gradual institutionalization of tea practice. The cultural production of each group was mutually supportive, illustrated by the key role Raku ceramics played in school activities and the significance of the Sen patronage to the success of the Raku workshop. The discourse of Raku legitimacy, based on the story of Riky’s patronage of Chjir, became a building block in the formation of the Sen style of tea practice. The iemoto system fundamentally transformed culture in Japan by creating a monopoly on the definition and regulation of meaning in key fields of cultural production such as tea. Iemoto organizational structures were ideal spaces for the production of belief about the value of material and visual culture. Pierre Bourdieu reminds us that “[t]he work of art is an object which exists as such only by virtue of the (collective) belief which knows and acknowledges it as a work of art.” The tea schools succeeded in garnering social capital and wealth over the course of the Tokugawa period in part because the iemoto system allowed them to impose what I will define as the iemoto gaze on tea practitioners, by dictating their aesthetic beliefs and consumption habits. The Iemoto System In the late seventeenth century, the household (ie) became prominent in Tokugawa society as the primary unit of religious affiliation, social status, occuPitelka04 90 7/22/05 9:40:49 AM Institutionalization of the Iemoto Gaze | 91 pation, and personal identity. The household also became the nucleus of the iemoto system. The household was structured so as to guarantee the survival of the family name; likewise, the iemoto organization was structured to continue the practice of its primary occupation and to maintain the position of the figure of the patriarch at...