Japan's Ikebana

About this book

Tell a rikka from a shoka, a kenzan from a kubari. Ikebana is the oldest flower-arranging tradition on earth still taught as a living discipline — an art that counts empty space among its materials — yet no English guide has ever organised its whole world in one place. This complete guide presents 200 schools, forms, flowers, vessels and occasions in one uniform, comparable format: each entry's story, its materials, vessels and technique, its form, line and character, and how it is arranged, viewed and cared for. Meet the founding school at Kyoto's Rokkakudo and the revolutionaries who set flowers in shallow water, learn the grammar from the three branches to the shaped emptiness of ma, walk the arranger's year from plum in the snow weeks to the chrysanthemum's throne, and read any arrangement in four checks — main stem, answering lines, fillers and space. A working companion for travellers, flower lovers and students of Japanese aesthetics, written to be re-read with every season.

Written and created in Japan by Japanese author Aki Wakamatsu. Published by Takikawa TOKOTOKO Kids LLC, a Japanese publisher in Hokkaido, Japan. Authentic Japanese content, carefully made in Japan — not mass-produced.