The Raku-yaki art 楽焼
is a practice that was forged in Japan in the 15th century with the ceramic potter Chōjirō 長次郎 who was its precursor, marked by a meeting with Sen no Rikyū, tea master of the wabi school 侘び who asks him to make bowls or chawan for the tea ceremony, called sadō 茶道 for the way of tea or chanoyu 茶の湯.
His techniques, which he perfected with the influence of his father who already worked with ceramics and especially certain transformations of mineral-based glazes with certainly other Chinese and Korean imprints, move towards a refinement of pure simplicity marked by great technique. Chōjirō's nephew following in his footsteps was honored with a new name and seal 楽 by Daimyo Toyotomi Hideyoshi 豊臣秀吉 which was inscribed on his pottery. This art is still alive today and the descendant of this family also with Raku Kichizaemon 樂吉左衞 and continues to exhibit some works around the world. The influences of these ceramics undoubtedly came from the need to return to sobriety, wabi 侘び Zen spiritual current and influenced by the Tao which amounts to seeing in all things the art of the divine path where all elements become one. The raw material, the earth, is transformed by water which makes it malleable, fire which through the alchemy of the elements changes the material from clay to ceramic to the point of quartz completed ultimately by the form which will accommodate the air and tea.
The techniques of raku pottery have remained the same but continue to evolve, today's ceramists' kilns are more gas-fired than wood-fired and are often small enough to heat up very quickly, old kilns take several days to reach the ideal temperature , all the potters being brought together to work with the same kiln. The raku-yaki technique subjects the pottery to large temperature variations and for this we add a certain quantity of already fired material called chamotte to our clay to make the pieces much more resistant, we also use sandy earths to same effect. We are talking about cooking at low temperatures but the chawans or tea ceremony bowls for example will enter an already hot oven to come out incandescent at around 12oo degrees and be immersed in water but generally the pieces require cooking at around 980 degrees. Practices such as calcination after the oven in sawdust or other flammable materials such as straw, rice, etc. appeared in the United States. As the refinement of the Japanese becomes more and more known, their arts travel around the world. It is above all the British Bernad Leach, famous in the world of ceramics, author of the book Potter's book published in 1940 which introduced raku in France. Paul Soldner, a renowned American potter artist, also caused its diffusion in 1981 with his arrival in France.
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