
Rikka style. Arranged by Sen'ei Ikenobo Headmaster, Ikenobo SchoolShoka shinputai styleIkenobo schoolWhile flower arrangement for many people in the West consists of symmetrically arranging flowering plants in a vase, Japanese Ikebana (literally 'flowers kept alive') is a lot more complex. There are many schools, of which the most popular are Ikenobo, Sogetsu and Ohara. There are also different styles depending on the school and the plants and vase used.Ikenobo is the oldest school of ikebana, founded by Buddhist priest Ikenobo Senkei in the 15th century. He is thought to have created the rikka (standing flowers) style. This style was developed as a Buddhist expression of the beauty of nature, with seven branches representing hills, waterfalls, valleys and so on arranged in a formalised way. The present 45th-generation head of the school is Ikenobo Sen'ei. The school is based in the Rokkakudo temple in Kyoto, believed to have been started by Prince Shotoku. Among the priests and aristocrats, this style became more and more formalised until, in the late 17th century, the growing merchant class developed a simpler style, called seika or shoka. Shoka uses only three main branches, known as ten (heaven), chi (earth) and jin (man) and is designed to show the beauty of the plant itself.

In the 1930's and then more so in the postwar period, interest in ikebana became much more widespread. Ikebana schools opened which attracted people of all social classes. During the occupation, many wives of US servicemen took up the art and later helped it spread abroad. Led by Teshigahara Sofu, founder in 1927 of the Sogetsu school, zen-eibana or avant-garde ikebana introduced all kinds of new materials, such as plastic, plaster and steel.Today, there are about 3,000 ikebana schools in Japan and thousands more around the world. The Ikenobo school alone has some 60,000 teachers worldwide. Ikebana is practised by about 15 million people in Japan, mostly young women.Ikebana can be roughly divided into two styles - the moribana shallow vase style and the nageire tall vase style. The Sogetsu school uses a series of kakei (patterns) for each style so that even the beginner can quickly create their own arrangements. As an example, let's look at the moribana Basic Upright style. Kakeizu for the arrangement shown on the left(copyright Sogetsukai Foundation). The photo shows the frontal view as in the illustration.

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