Defining Raku Ceramics: Translations, Elisions, Evolutions

Raku ceramics were first produced in Kyoto in the late sixteenth century, and have continued to be made and used in the context of ritualized Japanese tea culture (chanoyu) up to the present day. This essay examines the interest of Charles Lang Freer in Raku ceramics, and considers how his acquisitions—largely collected between 1895 and 1910, a period of some turmoil in the Japanese art market—serve as a useful index to changing assessments of the Raku ceramic tradition and its place in the broader landscape of arts associated with traditional tea culture in Japan and abroad.