Japan has various unique traditional arts, and one of the examples is Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement. Ikebana fascinates us today by representing the classic sense of beauty in the Japanese culture.
In Ikebana, we respect simple form, beauty in restraint, and significance of empty space. We sense deep spirituality through these aesthetic features. The Japanese traditionally considered such arts as ways to imitate, or, better still, to reproduce the essence of nature, and to look deeply into it, and finally, to be in unity with nature itself.
Ikebana has been practiced for more than six hundred years. It developed from the religious ritual of offering flowers. By the middle of the fifteenth century, with the emergence of the first classical styles, Ikebana achieved the status of an art form independent of its religious origins, though it continued to retain strong symbolic and philosophical overtones. The first teachers and students were members of the nobility, but as time passed, many schools arose, styles changed, and Ikebana came to be practiced at all levels of Japanese society.
The varying forms of Ikebana share certain common features, regardless of the period or school. Any plant material – branches, leaves, grasses, moss and fruit, as well as flowers – may be used. Withered leaves, seedpods and buds are valued as highly as flowers in full bloom. While a work may be composed of only one, or of many different kinds of materials, the selection of each element demands an experienced eye, and the arrangement requires considerable technical skill in order to create a kind of beauty that cannot be found in nature.
What distinguishes Ikebana from simpler decorative approaches is its asymmetrical form and the use of “empty” space as an essential feature of the composition. A sense of harmony among the materials, the container and the setting is also crucial. These are characteristics of the Japanese aesthetic feeling that Ikebana shares with traditional paintings, gardens, architecture and design.
In the late nineteenth century, when Japan opened itself to the influence of western culture, Ikebana schools reformed themselves. One of the developments was the creation of a new style for arrangement; Moribana style, which later led to the introduction of the Landscape Arrangement. Moreover, new-shape containers were introduced for works in the new style. Generally, there are two basic forms in Ikebana: Moribana, which employs low, shallow containers, and Heika, which is arranged in tall cylindrical vases.
Ikebana is still learned by many people in today's Japan. When people learn this traditional art, beginners must master certain basic styles in both forms by practicing these styles repeatedly with different materials. This is the best way to grasp both the unique characteristics of the materials and the methods of arranging them most beautifully.
Students rearrange works based on the teacher’s comments and criticism. This helps to improve the student's technical skill as does making sketches of work, initial and final arrangements, and studying the work of others in class and at exhibitions.
Having mastered the basic styles, students advance to courses on a higher level, acquiring skills in a wide variety of traditional and free-style arrangement. Observing nature is also important because of the seasonal qualities, growth processes and the beauty of natural environments.
