１０月２０日（木曜日）２０２２
京都国立博物館に特別展「茶の湯」を見に行きました。茶道は今や象徴的な日本文化となっていますが、奈良時代に中国から伝わった喫茶文化が時代を経て徐々に和様化し「茶の湯」という独特の文化を生み出したと、博物館発行のパンフレットに書いてありました。１階から３階までの広い展示場に奈良時代から近代まで喫茶や茶に関係する古文書や絵画、茶道具、また利休や秀吉の茶室の再現まで２００点もの名品が時代毎に分かりやすい解説とともに並べてあり、茶道を心得ない私には勉強になりました。
多賀大社から桃山時代の「調馬・廐馬（ちょうま・きゅうま）図屏風」（重文）も展示されており、庭で武士が調教しているのを座敷で主人が眺め、隣室では宗匠が茶を立て小姓が茶を運ぶ姿などが描かれていました。
建仁寺・栄西禅師が喫茶の風習を日本に伝えたそうですが、その栄西像が殆ど真っ黒でかすかに目玉のようなものが伺われますが、角のようなものもあるようで、一体どうなっているのか一緒に眺めている人に聞いてみたかったのですが、皆しばらくして去っていかれ結局皆分からないままだったんだと思うと何かおかしくて楽しい気分になりました。
I went to Kyoto National Museum to see the exhibition of "Tea in the Cultural life of Kyoto". People recognize that the Tea Ceremony is a symbol of Japanese culture, but originally tea was brought from China in the Nara period and Japanese people had gradually created a Japanese style of Tea Ceremony. There are about 200 exhibits from the Nara period to modern times which included ancient documents, paintings, various tools related to tea ceremony, and reproduced small tea rooms by Sen no rikyu and Toyotomi Hideyoshi. I learned a lot by reading the explanations beside the exhibition.
There is a big folding screen from Taga Taisha in which a scene was drawn of a Samurai training a horse, the headmaster watching it and the teamaster making tea in the next room, and the pageboy carrying tea to the headmaster.
It was said that priest Eisai at Ken-nin temple imported the custom of drinking tea from China in the Nara period and there was an old portrait of him in the exhibition. Unfortunately, it was so old and dark so I could only guess that it looked like his eyes. I wanted to ask how I should look at it to the people who were also looking at the portrait but all of them went to the next exhibition. It made me feel a little amused because I knew that they also wondered about it and in the end didn't know what it was.
