Ikebana
is the Japanese art of flower arrangement. It is also known as. The origin of ikebana can be traced back to the ancient Japanese custom of erecting evergreen trees and decorating them with flowers as Yorishiro to invite the gods.
Later, flower arrangements were instead used to adorn the of a traditional Japanese home.
is counted as one of the three classical Japanese arts of refinement, along with for incense appreciation and for tea and the tea ceremony.
Etymology
The term comes from the combination of the Japanese and. Possible translations include and.History
The pastime of viewing plants and appreciating flowers throughout the four seasons was established in Japan early on from the aristocracy. poetry anthologies such as the and from the Heian period included many poems on the topic of flowers. With the introduction of Buddhism, offering flowers at Buddhist altars became common. Although the lotus is widely used in India where Buddhism originated, in Japan other native flowers for each season were selected for this purpose.For a long time the art of flower arranging had no meaning, and functioned as merely the placing in vases the flowers to be used as temple offerings and before ancestral shrines, without system or meaningful structure. The first flower arrangements were composed using a system known as, meaning. A huge branch of pine or cryptomeria stood in the middle, with three or five seasonable flowers placed around it. These branches and stems were put in vases in upright positions without attempting artificial curves. Generally symmetrical in form, these arrangements appeared in religious pictures in the 14thcentury, as the first attempt to represent natural scenery. The large tree in the centre represented distant scenery, plum or cherry blossoms middle distance, and little flowering plants the foreground. The lines of these arrangements were known as centre and sub-centre.
Later on, among other types of Buddhist offerings, placing became popular in the Kamakura and Nanboku-chō periods. Various Buddhist scriptures have been named after flowers such as the and . The depicts lotus being offered by a monkey in front of a frog mimicking the Buddha.
With the development of the architectural style starting in the Muromachi period, and containers could be suitable displayed as art objects in the, a precursor to the alcove, and the, two-levelled shelves. Also displayed in these spaces were flower arrangements in vases that influenced the interior decorations, which became simpler and more exquisite over time. This style of decoration was called. The set of three ceremonial objects at the Buddhist altar called consisted of candles lit in holders, a censer, and flowers in a vase. The flowers in the vase were arranged in the earliest style called or, and were composed of and. Recent historical research now indicates that the practice of derived from a combination of belief systems, including Buddhist, and the Shinto belief is most likely the origin of the Japanese practice of modern. Together, they form the basis for the original, purely Japanese derivation of the practice of.
The art of flower arranging developed with many schools only coming into existence at the end of the 15thcentury following a period of the civil war. The eighth, Ashikaga Yoshimasa, was a patron of the arts and the greatest promoter of – tea ceremony – and, flower arrangement. Yoshimasa would later abdicate his position to devote his time to the arts, and developed concepts that would then go on to contribute to the formulation of rules in ; one of the most important being that flowers offered on all ceremonial occasions, and placed as offerings before the gods, should not be offered loosely, but should represent time and thought.
Yoshimasa's contemporaries also contributed heavily to the development of flower arranging; the celebrated painter Sōami, a friend of Yoshimasa, conceived of the idea of representing the three elements of heaven, humans, and earth, from which grew the principles of arrangements used today in some ikebana schools. It was at Yoshimasa's Silver Pavilion in Kyoto that received its greatest development, alongside the art of tea ceremony and, the incense ceremony.
Artists of the Kanō school, such as Sesshū Tōyō, Sesson, Kanō Masanobu, Kanō Motonobu, and Shugetsu of the 16thcentury, were lovers of nature, and advanced a step further in this period beyond a form of temple and room decoration, with greater consideration given to the natural beauty of a floral arrangement. At this time, was known as.
During the same time period, another form of flower arranging known as was developed; and are the two branches into which has been divided. Popularity of the two styles vacillated between these two for centuries. In the beginning, was stiff, formal, and more decorative style, while was simpler and more natural.
Although began to come into favour in the Higashiyama period, was still preferred, and did not truly gain popularity until the Momoyama period, about a hundred years after Ashikaga Yoshimasa. It was at this period that tea ceremony reached its highest development and strongly influenced, as a practitioner of tea was most probably also a follower of.
As a dependent of, branched off, gaining its independence and its own popularity in the 16thcentury for its freedom of line and natural beauty. Both styles, despite having originated in the Higashiyama period, reflect the time periods in which they gained popularity, with displaying the tastes of the Higashiyama period, and the tastes of the Momoyama period. lost some of its popularity during the Momoyama period, but in the first part of the Edo period was revived, and became more popular than ever before. In the Higashiyama period, had been used only as room decorations on ceremonial occasions, but now was followed as a fine art and looked upon as an accomplishment and pastime of the upper classes. reached its greatest popularity during the Genroku era.
has always been considered a dignified accomplishment. All of Japan's most celebrated generals notably practised flower arranging, finding that it calmed their minds and made their decisions on the field of action clearer; notable military practitioners include Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of Japan's most famous generals.
Many works of various schools on were published in the centuries from the Ken'ei to the Genroku eras, all founded on Sōami's idea of the three elements. A number of texts documenting also existed, though few contained directly instructional content; however, these books were fully illustrated, thus documenting the gradual progress of the art.
During the early Edo period, publications in Japan developed rapidly. Books about were published in succession. During this time, the was published, the oldest published manual. The was published in Kanbun 1. This was carefully written and instructive text, with rules and principles detailed in full, and was the second publication of texts in the Edo period after the. Although the text is similar to the contents of commentaries of the Muromachi period, the illustrations showed how to enjoy, which had spread from monks to warriors and further on to townspeople. The was the oldest published work on in Kanbun 12. The, published in Tenna 3, was the most famous manual. The came out Jōkyō 5.
In the Ken'ei era, was simple and natural, with no extreme curves in the arrangement, but in the Genroku era, the lines became complicated and the forms pattern-like, following general trends of high artistic development and expression within that period; during the Genroku period, all the fine arts were highly developed, above all pattern-printing for fabrics and decoration. In the latter part of the 17thcentury, Korin, the famous lacquer artist known for his exquisite designs, strongly influenced. In this period, the combination of a pattern or design with lines that followed the natural growth of the plant produced the most pleasing and graceful results.
It was in the latter part of the 17thcentury that was most practised and reached its highest degree of perfection as an art. Still, there were occasional departures into unnatural curves and artificial presentation styles that caused a shift, and the more naturalistic style of was again revived. Until then, only one branch of had been taught at a time, following the taste of the day, but now rival teachers in both and existed.
reached its greatest popularity in the Genroku era. From this time on took the name of. In the Tenmei era,, or, advanced rapidly in favour and developed great beauty of line. The exponents of the art not only studied nature freely, but combined this knowledge with that of, developing the results of even further.
After the Tenmei era, a formal form of arrangement developed. This form has a fixed rule or model known as "heaven, human, and earth". It is known as. In the Mishō-ryū school, the form is called.
The most popular schools of today, including Ikenobō, Enshū-ryū, and Mishō-ryū, amongst others, adhere to some principles, but there are in Tokyo and Kyoto many masters of who teach the simpler forms of Ko-ryū, and Ko-Shin-ryū of the Genroku and Tenmei eras.
The oldest international organisation, Ikebana International, was founded in 1956; Princess Takamado is the honorary president.
Practitioners
Followers and practitioners of ikebana, also referred to as, are known as. A teacher is called.Noted Japanese practitioners include Junichi Kakizaki, Mokichi Okada, and Yuki Tsuji. At a March 2015 TEDx in Shimizu, Shizuoka, Tsuji elaborated on the relationship of to beauty.
After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan, noted practitioner Toshiro Kawase began posting images of his arrangements online every day in a project called "One Day, One Flower."
Another practitioner is the Hollywood actress Marcia Gay Harden, who started when she was living in Japan as a child, and has published a book on with her own works. Her mother, Beverly Harden, was a practitioner of the Sōgetsu school. She later became also president of the Ikebana International Washington, DC chapter.