page_title: Ikebana
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Ikebana / History
caption_attribution_description: 日本語: 京都迎賓館の正面玄関にある生け花 English: Ikebana in Kyoto State Guest House
context_page_description: Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement. It is also known as Kadō. The tradition dates back to Heian period, when floral offerings were made at altars. Later, flower arrangements were instead used to adorn the tokonoma of a traditional Japanese home.
  Ikebana reached its first zenith in the 16th century under the influence of Buddhist tea masters and has grown over the centuries, with numerous distinct schools extant today.
  Ikebana is counted as one of the three classical Japanese arts of refinement, along with kōdō for incense appreciation and chadō for tea and the tea ceremony.
context_section_description: The pastime of viewing plants and appreciating flowers throughout the four seasons was established in Japan early on through the aristocracy. Waka poetry anthologies such as the Man'yōshū and Kokin Wakashū from the Heian period (794–1185) included many poems on the topic of flowers. 
  With the introduction of Buddhism, offering flowers at Buddhist altars became common. Although the lotus is widely used in India where Buddhism originated, in Japan other native flowers for each season were selected for this purpose. While in China the Buddhist priests were the first instructors of flower arrangement, in Japan they only introduced its crudest elements. 
  For a long time the art had no meaning and was merely the placing in vases, without system, of the flowers to be used as temple offerings and before ancestral shrines. The first flower arrangements worked out with a system were known as shin-no-hana, meaning "central flower arrangement". A huge branch of pine or cryptomeria stood in the middle, and around the tree were placed three or five seasonable flowers. These branches and stems were put in vases in upright positions without attempt at artificial curves. 
  Generally symmetrical in form, the arrangements appeared in Japanese religious pictures of the 14th century. It was the first attempt to represent natural scenery. The large tree in the center represented distant scenery, plum or cherry blossoms middle distance, and little flowering plants the foreground. The lines of these arrangements were known as centre and sub-centre. Later on, among other types of Buddhist offering, placing mitsu-gusoku became popular in the Kamakura (1185–1333) and Nanboku-chō periods (1336–1392). Various Buddhist scriptures have been named after flowers such as the Kegon-kyo (Flower Garland Sutra) and Hokke-kyo (Lotus Sutra). The Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga (Scroll of Frolicking Animals and Humans) depicts lotus being offered by a monk(ey) in front of a frog mimicking the Buddha.
  With the development of the shoin-zukuri architectural style starting in the Muromachi period (1336–1573), kakemono (scroll pictures) and containers could be suitable displayed as art objects in the oshiita, a precursor to the tokonoma alcove, and the chigaidana, two-leveled shelves. Also displayed in these spaces were flower arrangements in vases that influenced the interior decorations, which became simpler and more exquisite. This style of decoration was called zashiki kazari (座敷飾). The set of three ceremonial objects at the Buddhist altar called mitsugusoku consisted of candles lit in holders, a censer, and flowers in a vase. The flowers in the vase were arranged in the earliest style called tatebana or tatehana (立花, "standing flowers"), and were composed of shin (motoki) and shitakusa. Recent historical research now indicates that the practice of tatebana derived from a combination of belief systems, including Buddhist, and the Shinto yorishiro belief is most likely the origin of the Japanese practice of ikebana that we know today. Together they form the basis for the original purely Japanese derivation of the practice of ikebana.
  The art developed very slowly, and the many schools did not come into existence until the end of the 15th century following the period of the civil war. The eighth shōgun Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1436–1490), was a patron of the arts and the greatest promoter of cha-no-yu, the ceremonial tea, and ikebana flower arrangement. Yoshimasa finally abdicated the office in order to devote his time to the fine arts. It was he who said that flowers offered on all ceremonial occasions and placed as offerings before the gods should not be offered loosely, but should represent time and thought. Rules then commenced to be formulated.
  It is to the celebrated painter Sōami, a contemporary and friend of Yoshimasa, who conceived the idea of representing the three elements of heaven, human, and earth, from which have grown the principles of the arrangements used today. It was at Yoshimasa's Silver Pavilion in Kyoto, where the art of cha-no-yu, the tea ceremony, and ko-aw
caption: Ikebana arrangement with cart, at the Kyoto State Guest House
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