楽

Raku (楽) means 'enjoyment,' 'ease,' or 'pleasure' in Japanese. The word became the name of both a pottery technique and a family dynasty through a specific historical act: the tea master Sen no Rikyū (1522–1591), the most influential figure in the history of Japanese tea ceremony, commissioned a tile-maker named Chōjirō to create tea bowls that embodied wabi — the austere, contemplative aesthetic that Rikyū was elevating to the defining philosophy of chanoyu (the way of tea). The bowls Chōjirō produced were hand-shaped rather than wheel-thrown, low-fired in a small kiln, and deliberately simple in form and color — typically black (kuro raku) or red (aka raku). Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the ruling regent of Japan, was so pleased with the work that he bestowed a gold seal bearing the character raku (楽) on Chōjirō's successor, Jokei. The family took the character as their surname, and every subsequent generation has continued producing raku tea bowls to this day. The current head of the Raku family, Raku Kichizaemon XVI, is the sixteenth generation.