What Is Ikebana?

"Reality is converted from its usual unremarkable state - in which we take it or its components for granted - to a significant or specially experienced reality in which the components, by their emphasis or combination or juxtaposition, acquire a metareality." (Dissanayake,95)

Ikebana is the floral art of Japan. The word is generally translated as "living flowers" or "flowers kept alive" and is used as a blanket term for Japanese floral art in a wide range of styles from a number of different systems or schools. Ikebana is systematic and subject to formal analysis.

The more formal term for the art is kado - "the way of flower" - a designation that makes it clear that it is not only a study of arranging flowers but a practice or discipline.(Kamachi, 85) There are many ways of arranging flowers in Japan that are not ikebana. Ikebana is to arranging flowers what chanoya is to making a morning cup of tea.


A Point to Ponder: Here is a quote from Kikka Shibata at www.ikebana-arts.com :

"In general, a flower or tree looks perfectly beautiful blooming in its natural environment. It can hardly be improved upon. So if we cut it down for our ikebana and try to reproduce its original beauty in a vase or by disposing it in another space, the attempt would be a failure. The plant's original blooming beauty will elude us. It is up to your aesthetic awareness to assemble the materials, choose their most beautiful aspects, put them in a different order, and endow them with a value transcending that which they had in nature. Arranging Ikebana begins with careful observation of the plant materials. With the help of nature, beauty is expressed by man's hand."

How does this quote help explain how such a contrived arrangement of floral materials can be thought of as "living flowers" or "flowers kept alive"?