Ikebana: the Japanese art of flower arrangement

  After seeing an ikebana exhibition at a department store in Tokyo I attended a class offered by Sogetsu, one of the major ikebana schools I learned for about seven years before.

 In a standard way, ikebana learners choose  two kinds of materials --flowers, branches leaves or grasses--for their works. Ikebana is often a very simple form of decoration and flowers are not the main material used, in marked contrast to the Western decorative art of flower arranging.  This is because ikebana originated as an offering to Buddha by the Buddhist monks. Eventually ikebana developed into an art.

 Sogetsu is a very modern and young school of ikebana, but Ikenobo, another major school,  has a long history and is a very authentic one. Ikenobo is a monk's name, which reminds us that the school was originally related to Buddhist monks.

 Apart from ikebana offered by religious people, ikebana is generally put on an alcove called a toknoma, in a Japanese-style room, and a hanging scroll is also typically put up. A half-sized tatami of tokonoma should be clean and tidy because it is believed to be a spiritual center of the house so a simple ikebana arrangement is preferable.
Although the ikebana works of the exhibition I saw this day were highly elaborate, the teacher's demonstration in the class was very simple but beautiful. I followed her style and have done one myself.

Choose two kinds of matreials




And then decide which vase you use

 

I've done it.







Ikebana and a scroll in tokonoma