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

Pitelka, Morgan

ISBN 10: 0824829700 / ISBN 13: 9780824829704

Published by University of Hawaii Press, 2005

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Handmade Culture: Raku Potters, Patrons, and Tea Practitioners in Japan
• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0824829700
• ISBN 13: 9780824829704
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Handmade Culture is the first comprehensive and cohesive study in any language to examine Raku, one of Japan’s most famous arts and a pottery technique practiced around the world. More than a history of ceramics, this innovative work considers four centuries of cultural invention and reinvention during times of both political stasis and socioeconomic upheaval. It combines scholarly erudition with an accessible story through its lively and lucid prose and its generous illustrations. The author’s own experiences as the son of a professional potter and a historian inform his unique interdisciplinary approach, manifested particularly in his sensitivity to both technical ceramic issues and theoretical historical concerns.

Handmade Culture makes ample use of archaeological evidence, heirloom ceramics, tea diaries, letters, woodblock prints, and gazetteers and other publications to narrate the compelling history of Raku, a fresh approach that sheds light not only on an important traditional art from Japan, but on the study of cultural history itself.

About the Author

Morgan Pitelka is associate professor of Asian studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.