Ikebana: Moribana

A post was promised, and a post there shall be! This post in on nothing other than Japanese floral art, known as ikebana ( いけばな ; 生け花 ).

Ikebana was at its height in the later half of the sixteenth century. This was done so by it's founder, Sen-no-Rikyu. Currently, there are roughly three thousand schools that teach ikebana, with two of the most popular being the Ikenobo school and the Ohara school.

Ikebana can be divided into two main styles. These include nageirebana ( なげいればな ), and moribana ( もりばな ); sorry, I can't find the correct Kanji for these, but I will keep looking, and update as I find them.

The style that we were shown was that of moribana. From what I can gather from the paper they handed to us (as can be seen here, and sorry for the bad quality), the style is based on the type of vase used. Moribana vases are generally shallow and have a shippo ( しっぽ ), or kenzan ( けんざん ) located in them. Shown below is the pot that I chose that had a kenzan in it:

Yes, the kenzan is the thing made from a platform and needles. Let's just say that I was poked a few times during this adventure. Anyways, I digress.

Moribana does not have many strict rules (probably why they chose it for us to do). One such rule is that Western flowers can be used, and the arranged flowers may be placed in Western-style rooms, not just the tokonoma (traditional Japanese-styled rooms).

In this moribana session, we were fortunate enough to have a lady who has been doing moribana (and possibly other styles) for 60 years now! She was a sweet old lady that was always giving us pointers while we worked. She did, of course, go first and created two maribana sets, both with different flowers. Both can be seen below:

We were told two main things about moribana.

1) The tallest plant/flower trio must be 17-15-13 inches tall (I think, it was hard to hear what she said, but it sure wasn't centimeters).

2) This trio must be arranged so that a triangle can be seen from above and the sides.

After that, three sets of plants, each containing two stems/flowers, are then arranged. One is chosen to be the highest, and the others underneath. These flowers must reside in the triangle (the one formed by the tops of the first plant/flower trio). After the rest of the plants are added, some stems with leaves were used to help cover up the kenzan in the bowl.

Shown below is my creation:

I went for a more "spread out" feel. The one major mistake that I made, was that I put the second sunflower in the back. I was told that all of the plants should be seen, whether it be from the side or the top, but they shouldn't be hiding behind the other flowers. All-in-all, it was a very fun seminar, and I can't wait for more. I may try to post more information about this topic, or give appropriate links, just please let me know what you would like to see. Until next time, enjoy these other pictures, and peace out! - JapanJames