Grand Kitano Tea Ceremony (original) (raw)

The Grand Kitano Tea Ceremony (Japanese: 北野大茶湯; Kitano ōchanoyu), also known in English as the Grand Kitano Tea Gathering, was a large Japanese tea ceremony event that was hosted by the regent and chancellor Toyotomi Hideyoshi at Kitano Tenmangū shrine in Kyoto on the first day of the tenth month in the year Tenshō 15 (1587). Japanese cultural historians view it as a major cultural event of the Momoyama period. Louise Cort points out these three reasons: The event was "a key move in Hideyoshi's strategy to prove his cultural legitimacy; a turning point in the development of chanoyu style and theory; and a crisis in the personal relationship between its chief designers, two of the most influential figures of the Momoyama period, Hideyoshi and Sen no Rikyū".