By Masako Mare
It is said that the practice of flower arranging was originally used in Japan to pay tribute to the gods, and the floral arrangements were therefore considered sacred. In Japan, historical records documenting the appearance of traditional flower arrangements date back to about 500 years ago. It was in the seventeenth century that followers of this new form of artistic expression started creating the rules leading to the formation of what would eventually become the disciplinary art that is now known as Ikebana. The diversity of forms and methods that were developed over time made Ikebana a much more sophisticated form of art. In the end, Ikebana has become a discipline where the stage for the artistic expression is set by the harmony achieved through the combination of natural materials (flowers, stems and branches), the container, and the lines and forms that characterize the art of Japanese flower arrangement.
Western style arrangements typically consist of a free form assemblage of flowers in a container. In contrast, Ikebana is more of a disciplined form of art, governed by well-defined rules, principles and techniques. For example, certain precepts regulate elements like the light and the shadows. There is also what is known as the three points of balance - shin-fuku-tai in Japanese - which symbolize man, heaven and earth, respectively, and that have to be in harmonious equilibrium in order to give true life to an Ikebana flower arrangement. This and the fact that stems and branches are used in addition to flowers, are perhaps the most obvious differences with western-style flower arrangement.
I have noticed that western style gardens - such as those seen in big castles, for example - characterize themselves by man-made forms that generally follow symmetric patterns. In contrast, Japanese gardens, while also man-made, always try to recreate lifelike landscapes, by using not only botanical elements but also water, gravel, rocks and other natural components. In a similar manner, when compared to western floral arrangements, Ikebana compositions also have a stronger emphasis in reproducing natural settings.
Ikebana flower designs tend to be minimalistic; the key to achieving their distinguished beauty is not in any particular single component, but rather the balance between all of them. The key is finding a harmonic balance between all the elements of expression (the container and the flowers, stalks and leaves), their characteristics (such as color, texture, form and the season they represent) and the space where the flower arrangement is expected to be used.
My Personal Journey to the Way of the Flower
I am a native of Shikoku, the smallest and less populated of the four main islands that comprise the Japanese archipelago. I was born and raised in what was then known as Iyomishima, a small town located between a backdrop of beautiful mountains and the Seto Inland Sea, the waters that separate Shikoku from Honshu, the main island of Japan. Without a doubt, the rich natural settings that I enjoyed at my birthplace throughout my childhood and youth, had a profound effect in how my sensitivities for nature and art developed over time, and to this date.
My parents house was a traditional home that had the typical Japanese garden in the back with various different trees, plants and many seasonal flowers. I grew up playing around our Japanese black pine, Japanese plum, loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) and pomegranate trees, all the while enjoying the azaleas, camellias and many other flowers that my father nurtured with so much love and dedication. I also remember that we had flowers that were originally introduced in Japan from foreign countries, such as Amaryllis (Belladonna Lily), roses, daisies, and dahlias. So while our garden was very Japanese in style, I can now see how it was more like a display of universal nature.
My love for nature, and particularly flowers, manifested itself from an early age. When I was in elementary school, I remember frequently picking up flowers from our garden in the morning, wrapping them in a newspaper and taking them to school, where I would use them to decorate our classroom. This was something that I did spontaneously, and it gave me so much joy!
When I learned Ikebana as an adult, I was really fortunate to have had an old-fashioned sensei (instructor) who not only taught me the theory and techniques, but also immersed me in the respectable manners and ways of the good old days. It is through my sensei that I learned that Ikebana goes beyond the typical art form, and that it is more of a way of life; in fact, Ikebana is also known as kado, which literally means "the way of the flower."
It was much later in my life that I came to the United States. Being fond of arts and crafts, I soon made my way to many specialty stores, where I discovered, with great amazement, the quality and variety of silk flowers. There were so many and they looked so lifelike! I also noticed that many people here used silk flower arrangements to decorate their living and working spaces. At first, the notion of using silk flowers instead of real ones was odd to me and I resisted it. But that changed after seeing the quality and vividness of silk flowers, and realizing the practicality of long-lasting, low maintenance flower arrangements. This lead me to the idea of using silk flowers to create Ikebana-inspired flower arrangements.
Faithful to the Ikebana principles of minimalism, I compose my floral designs with few flowers. The reasoning behind minimalism is based on the fact that leaves and stems are better suited to express the three points (man, heaven and earth) that govern an Ikebana composition. Depending on the place where the arrangement will be used and the season, I may use a single gorgeous flower, which can be very effective in creating a pleasant aesthetic impression. But the focus of my arrangements is to recreate nature. So, as a rule of thumb, I tend to keep my compositions rather simple. As in Ikebana, simplicity and minimalism are at the heart of my designs.
The utmost importance in an arrangement is the overall harmony and balance. It is possible to combine two or more flowers in one floral design, but in this case choosing flowers that are compatible with each other is of utmost importance. In other words, the key to a well-balanced arrangement is to choose flowers that can strengthen the beauty of each other. What's important to getting the most out of the components of an arrangement is the harmony between the floral material and the container, as well as the overall balance. No matter how beautiful a flower may be on its own, if it does not harmonize with the rest of the material, the balance is lost and the beauty of the flower is wasted.
Etymologically, the origins of the name Ikebana comes from two Japanese words: ikeru, which means to give or conserve life, and hana, which translates as flower. There is an old Japanese saying relating to Japanese flower arrangement that goes kokoro wo ikeru, which literally means to give life to your heart. In all cultures, nature has always been an essential source for healing of the soul. In Japan, the use of flowers to enrich the spirit has been part of the culture since ancient times. By extension, Ikebana is also considered a form of artistic expression meant to enrich and heal the spirit.
My arrangements cross-pollinate the oriental essence that I learned through the art of Ikebana with the practicality that modern technology offers us in the form of lifelike silk flowers. So while I take strong inspiration in the principles of harmony, methods and the spirit of Ikebana for all my designs, it is the ample diversity of silk flowers that allows me to unleash my creativity in ways that I never thought were possible. Sort of a bridge between east and west, or the best of both worlds, if you will.
Masako Mare is a certified Japanese flower arrangement instructor. Her work of Ikebana-inspired silk flower arrangements can be seen at [http://www.hanabito.com]. Masako can be reached at masako@hanabito.com.
It is said that the practice of flower arranging was originally used in Japan to pay tribute to the gods, and the floral arrangements were therefore considered sacred. In Japan, historical records documenting the appearance of traditional flower arrangements date back to about 500 years ago. It was in the seventeenth century that followers of this new form of artistic expression started creating the rules leading to the formation of what would eventually become the disciplinary art that is now known as Ikebana. The diversity of forms and methods that were developed over time made Ikebana a much more sophisticated form of art. In the end, Ikebana has become a discipline where the stage for the artistic expression is set by the harmony achieved through the combination of natural materials (flowers, stems and branches), the container, and the lines and forms that characterize the art of Japanese flower arrangement.
Western style arrangements typically consist of a free form assemblage of flowers in a container. In contrast, Ikebana is more of a disciplined form of art, governed by well-defined rules, principles and techniques. For example, certain precepts regulate elements like the light and the shadows. There is also what is known as the three points of balance - shin-fuku-tai in Japanese - which symbolize man, heaven and earth, respectively, and that have to be in harmonious equilibrium in order to give true life to an Ikebana flower arrangement. This and the fact that stems and branches are used in addition to flowers, are perhaps the most obvious differences with western-style flower arrangement.
I have noticed that western style gardens - such as those seen in big castles, for example - characterize themselves by man-made forms that generally follow symmetric patterns. In contrast, Japanese gardens, while also man-made, always try to recreate lifelike landscapes, by using not only botanical elements but also water, gravel, rocks and other natural components. In a similar manner, when compared to western floral arrangements, Ikebana compositions also have a stronger emphasis in reproducing natural settings.
Ikebana flower designs tend to be minimalistic; the key to achieving their distinguished beauty is not in any particular single component, but rather the balance between all of them. The key is finding a harmonic balance between all the elements of expression (the container and the flowers, stalks and leaves), their characteristics (such as color, texture, form and the season they represent) and the space where the flower arrangement is expected to be used.
My Personal Journey to the Way of the Flower
I am a native of Shikoku, the smallest and less populated of the four main islands that comprise the Japanese archipelago. I was born and raised in what was then known as Iyomishima, a small town located between a backdrop of beautiful mountains and the Seto Inland Sea, the waters that separate Shikoku from Honshu, the main island of Japan. Without a doubt, the rich natural settings that I enjoyed at my birthplace throughout my childhood and youth, had a profound effect in how my sensitivities for nature and art developed over time, and to this date.
My parents house was a traditional home that had the typical Japanese garden in the back with various different trees, plants and many seasonal flowers. I grew up playing around our Japanese black pine, Japanese plum, loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) and pomegranate trees, all the while enjoying the azaleas, camellias and many other flowers that my father nurtured with so much love and dedication. I also remember that we had flowers that were originally introduced in Japan from foreign countries, such as Amaryllis (Belladonna Lily), roses, daisies, and dahlias. So while our garden was very Japanese in style, I can now see how it was more like a display of universal nature.
My love for nature, and particularly flowers, manifested itself from an early age. When I was in elementary school, I remember frequently picking up flowers from our garden in the morning, wrapping them in a newspaper and taking them to school, where I would use them to decorate our classroom. This was something that I did spontaneously, and it gave me so much joy!
When I learned Ikebana as an adult, I was really fortunate to have had an old-fashioned sensei (instructor) who not only taught me the theory and techniques, but also immersed me in the respectable manners and ways of the good old days. It is through my sensei that I learned that Ikebana goes beyond the typical art form, and that it is more of a way of life; in fact, Ikebana is also known as kado, which literally means "the way of the flower."
It was much later in my life that I came to the United States. Being fond of arts and crafts, I soon made my way to many specialty stores, where I discovered, with great amazement, the quality and variety of silk flowers. There were so many and they looked so lifelike! I also noticed that many people here used silk flower arrangements to decorate their living and working spaces. At first, the notion of using silk flowers instead of real ones was odd to me and I resisted it. But that changed after seeing the quality and vividness of silk flowers, and realizing the practicality of long-lasting, low maintenance flower arrangements. This lead me to the idea of using silk flowers to create Ikebana-inspired flower arrangements.
Faithful to the Ikebana principles of minimalism, I compose my floral designs with few flowers. The reasoning behind minimalism is based on the fact that leaves and stems are better suited to express the three points (man, heaven and earth) that govern an Ikebana composition. Depending on the place where the arrangement will be used and the season, I may use a single gorgeous flower, which can be very effective in creating a pleasant aesthetic impression. But the focus of my arrangements is to recreate nature. So, as a rule of thumb, I tend to keep my compositions rather simple. As in Ikebana, simplicity and minimalism are at the heart of my designs.
The utmost importance in an arrangement is the overall harmony and balance. It is possible to combine two or more flowers in one floral design, but in this case choosing flowers that are compatible with each other is of utmost importance. In other words, the key to a well-balanced arrangement is to choose flowers that can strengthen the beauty of each other. What's important to getting the most out of the components of an arrangement is the harmony between the floral material and the container, as well as the overall balance. No matter how beautiful a flower may be on its own, if it does not harmonize with the rest of the material, the balance is lost and the beauty of the flower is wasted.
Etymologically, the origins of the name Ikebana comes from two Japanese words: ikeru, which means to give or conserve life, and hana, which translates as flower. There is an old Japanese saying relating to Japanese flower arrangement that goes kokoro wo ikeru, which literally means to give life to your heart. In all cultures, nature has always been an essential source for healing of the soul. In Japan, the use of flowers to enrich the spirit has been part of the culture since ancient times. By extension, Ikebana is also considered a form of artistic expression meant to enrich and heal the spirit.
My arrangements cross-pollinate the oriental essence that I learned through the art of Ikebana with the practicality that modern technology offers us in the form of lifelike silk flowers. So while I take strong inspiration in the principles of harmony, methods and the spirit of Ikebana for all my designs, it is the ample diversity of silk flowers that allows me to unleash my creativity in ways that I never thought were possible. Sort of a bridge between east and west, or the best of both worlds, if you will.
Masako Mare is a certified Japanese flower arrangement instructor. Her work of Ikebana-inspired silk flower arrangements can be seen at [http://www.hanabito.com]. Masako can be reached at masako@hanabito.com.
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