Ikebana
The origins of Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement, date back to about 538 AD, when Buddhism came to Japan. It became common at that time for monks to decorate altars with cut flowers. Over the next millennium, the Japanese art of flower arrangement went through many shifts, becoming more secular and art-oriented, rather than religious. Its main intention as an art form is to allow the artist to express the beauty and integrity of nature and to allow the viewer to experience that expression.
Different schools of Ikebana attempt to express different qualities of life and nature. Some focus on how the arrangement symbolizes the source of life itself (the vase) and its external manifestations (the flowers rising up from the vase). Other schools are concerned with representing the wholeness, intricacy, and variation of an entire landscape within one flower arrangement. In all cases, Ikebana is a celebration of the beauty and wonder of life and the natural world.
There are many schools of Ikebana, the most formal of which is called Rikka. There are strict rules in this school about how many stems can be used and how each stem relates to the others geometrically along the central axis of the arrangement. Most schools of Ikebana are similar to Rikka in that the artist must adhere to very specific mathematical relationships within the arrangement.
Unlike floral arts in the west, Ikebana is considered a fine art along the lines of painting or sculpture. Like those western arts, Ikebana has evolved to allow the artist to express more freely. There is now a Free Style school of Ikebana, wherein the rules are much more open and the meaning of the arrangement is left in the hands of the artist.
Next time you buy flowers, imagine arranging them in the interest of expressing a universal theme, like joy, transcendence, or even sorrow. Think outside the box when choosing containers. Be creative!
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