Ikebana – Giving Life to Dead Flowers

Ikebana (活け花) or Kadō (華道, “way of flowers”) is better known in the West as the traditional Japanese art of flower arranging. The word Ikebana literally means, “giving life to a flower” and this is what this centuries-old art does whereby use of techniques and tools that make flowers, branches, glasses, foliage come to life.

The basic tools required in Ikebana, apart from flowers and any floral garnishment, are a tray/vessel or vase, an ikebana clipper and kenzan, which are the flower holding flogs.

Ikebana aims to bring out the inner qualities of flowers and other plants’ parts to express emotion and beauty. In Japanese culture, most native flowers, plants, and trees are embedded with symbolic meaning and associated with seasons, so in traditional ikebana, both symbolism and seasonality have always been prioritised when developing arrangements. With the development of the shoin-zukuri architectural style starting in the Muromachi period (1333–1573), kakemono (scroll pictures) and containers became suitable displays as art objects in the tokonoma alcove. Also displayed in these spaces were flower arrangements in vases that influenced the interior decorations, which became simpler and more exquisite. This style of decoration was called zashiki kazari (座敷飾), or mansion decoration.

There are many schools of ikebana, of which the most popular are Ikenobo, Sogetsu and Ohara. There are also different styles depending on the school and the plants and vase used.

Ikenobo is the oldest school of ikebana, founded by Buddhist priest Ikenobo Senkei in the 15th century, who is thought to have created the rikka (standing flowers) style. The school is based in the Rokkakudo Temple in Kyoto. Among the priests and aristocrats, this style became gradually formalised until, in the late 17th century, the growing merchant class developed a simpler style, called Shoka which uses only three main branches, known as ten (heaven), chi (earth) and jin (man). Another old form of ikebana is nageire, used in the tea ceremony.

Ohara Unshin broke from the Ikenobo school in the late 19th century, forming the Ohara school, which uses moribana (piled-up flowers) in a shallow, flat container. At the time, Western culture was heavily influential in Japan and the moribana made good use of Western plants. But it was still a formal style. Influence from the artistic movements of the early 20th century led to the development of jiyuka (free-style) arrangement.

In the 1930’s and then more so in the postwar period, interest in ikebana became much more widespread. Ikebana schools opened which attracted people of all social classes. During the occupation, many wives of US servicemen took up the art and later helped it spread abroad. Led by Teshigahara Sofu, founder in 1927 of the Sogetsu school, zen-eibana or avant-garde ikebana introduced all kinds of new materials, such as plastic, plaster and steel.

There are three common Moribana styles—upright, slanting, and water-reflecting—with many variations within each style.

The branches and flowers—shin, soe, and tai—are all measured in relation to the utsuwa (vessel). To determine the proper lengths of these elements, measure the height and width of your vase and add these measurements together. Shin should be no more than three times this sum. Soe is two-thirds of shin, and tai is two-thirds of soe.

Today, there are about 3,000 ikebana schools in Japan and thousands more around the world. The Ikenobo school alone has some 60,000 teachers worldwide. Ikebana is practised by about 15 million people in Japan, mostly young women.