Special exhibition at Edo-Tokyo Museum

Visited the Special Exhibition on Ikebana-A Japanese Aesthetic through Time- An Exploration of Japanese Floral Art. http://www.edo-tokyo-museum.or.jp/english/special/now/index.html

(after the special exhibition was over the descriptions were removed, now you can find the current exhibit's description)

What does one expect from such an exhibition. At least a real ikebana arrangement. But that was missing.

In the exhibit space they had examples of ikebana arrangements of different schools made out of wax or some other material. The names were in Japanese, I asked the attendant to read it for me, the kanji characters were not familiar, the person in charge came and said they did not think foreigners would need the translation. All other exhibits had both a Japanese and English title.

When the "expert" said the first school is Enshu, I asked which Enshu? Maybe that is why the English titles were left out!

There were several films well worth seeing, many manuscripts or copies of manuscripts important in the history of ikebana.