Raku Kichizaemon is a short film about the head of the Raku family on his art and his family’s 450 year tradition as ceramics craftsmen. Via Nippon.com:
The black Raku tea bowl made by Chōjirō, the first-generation head of the Raku potter family, seems totally undecorated, lacking gaudy color or elegance of form. Made in the late sixteenth century, this piece was commissioned by none other than Sen no Rikyū, the father of the “way of tea.” The creator fashioned the bowl so it would nestle in the palms of the drinker’s hands, as if he or she were holding still-malleable clay. Hidden within the tranquil appearance of this smallish tea bowl are the deep spirits of both Chōjirō and Rikyū, for whom the philosophy of wabi-cha—the simple, austere, frugal tea ceremony that came to be in the flamboyant Momoyama period (1568–1603)—was as important as his own life.
In our own era, Raku Kichizaemon XV, the current head of the Raku family, has launched an unprecedented plan: to take these aesthetic bowls—created with techniques transmitted only from father to son, from the first generation of the Raku family all the way to the upcoming sixteenth generation—and exhibit them outside of Japan, in places not familiar with the tea ceremony culture. Exhibitions in Italy, France, and the Netherlands in 1997 were followed by another exhibition of approximately 170 works in the Los Angeles County Museum in the United States in 2015, as well as exhibitions at the Hermitage Museum and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Russia’s two biggest art museums. Around 190,000 people visited the exhibitions. The Raku tea bowls, embodying the classical Japanese aesthetic concepts of wabi and sabi, transience and imperfection, were enthusiastically received during their tour. This in turn made a great impression on the Raku family.