Ohara School, a brief introduction.

Upright style.

I follow my friend's blog for Happy Monday and always enjoy it. Now for the past few posts it has been on different ikebana schools. As I belong to the Ohara school, I am writing something, although I usually find it more interesting to know what others think of it, so please comment if you like.

For an Ohara School person to describe the school in one sentence, I would say that it was the school that introduced the moribana style. Moribana, is a word that a newspaper reporter used when he first saw an exhibition by Unshin Ohara, to describe a new way of arranging flowers in a low flat container. It means piled up (mori), flowers (bana). The Ohara School website http://www.ohararyu.or.jp/english/index_e.html

This style was started by the founder of the Ohara School Unshin Ohara at the beginning of the Meiji period when foreign flowers were first being imported into Japan.

The use of the flat containers allowed other styles to develop the natural style and styles that will show the beauty of water.

Unshin Ohara was born in Matsue city http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&rls=en&q=Matsue&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&split=0&ei=z66YSqHbMc2CkQXEj7SrAg&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1

of Shimane a prefecture on the side of the sea of Japan, there is also a beautiful lake, Shinji lake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Shinji (Shinji ko), this influenced his arrangements.

Now for a simple arrangement.

I bought a triangular pinholder, kenzan, to arrange the flowers after a workshop in Osaka this summer. I just used a bowl for Chinese noodles.

Step 1.

Step 2 Notice the main stem is slightly placed forward.

3 days later

Thistle, 2 pink roses, gypsophila(baby's breath)

To give a three dimensional feeling the second rose is placed lower.

For me ikebana is like painting a three dimensional painting with real flowers. Unfortunately this cannot be well seen in a two dimensional photograph.