Generations

Hiroki Ohara, the present and fifth headmaster of the Ohara School had this huge seasonal arrangement in a basket at the Takashimaya Department store in Shinjuku, Tokyo, during the yearly exhibition of the Ohara School Tokyo Chapter.

The first moribana exhibition was in 1897 and in 1912 the Ohara School was established by Unshin Ohara. He was succeeded in 1916 by his son Koun who developed teaching techniques for moribana.

Houn Ohara the third headmaster took over from his father in 1938 and under his leadership the school became internationally known.

His famous ikebana exhibit in September 1945 just after the end of the war was followed in November of 1945 by a joint exhibition with the Sogetsu headmaster in Kobe.

Houn's son Natsuki was born in 1949, he became headmaster designate in 1972 but unfortunately passed away in 1992. His legacy to the school is the very elegant style of Hanamai or "flower dance", and Hana-isho a style that is suitable for contemporary houses.

At this month's exhibition in October it was interesting to see the use of modern furniture and artwork from many countries as a backdrop to the Hana-isho exhibits. In the same way as I learnt many things from Japanese flower arranging concerning what can be used in combination with what and what should be displayed at a certain season, the same can be applied for other cultures and these new styles will encourage cultural exchange and mutual understanding for the coming generations.

By exporting ikebana, interesting containers and concepts have been imported and have been incorporated in ikebana. In some ways I was rather disappointed with this trend but I can see that it is necessary to arouse interest in the younger generation, and from there the original styles will also be appreciated.

Ohara School 5 generations:

1st Headmaster Unshin Ohara

2nd Headmaster Koun Ohara

3rd Headmaster Houn Ohara

4th Headmaster Natsuki Ohara

5th present Headmaster Hiroki Ohara

My rendition of Hanamai

Hanamai by Professor Kudo

Jasmine

Recently, I had some delicious jasmine tea, with only fragrant leaves. I was used to drinking tea with jasmine flowers in it. The smell of jasmine reminds me of summers in Egypt where jasmine garlands are everywhere. We also had a climber on the house and now in Japan I have the same but it flowers in May.

It is probably not a very popular flower for ikebana but here are two arrangements using a bowl, that I found is also used as a fish bowl in China and I used a shell to keep the flowers in place.

Egypt exports jasmine oil and flower essence to France, apparently one ounce costs more than an ounce of gold. A famous perfume called Joy has jasmine as its base.

I find the smell very pleasant and relaxing. As it is not the season for it now, its fragrance can still be enjoyed by drinking jasmine tea.

Free style with Bittersweet vine

Arrangement with my teacher's container

Material. 2 aspidistra leaves, 2 cosmos flowers and 2 branches of bittersweet vine*

My ikebana lesson this Friday was after a busy week including a long day in Tokyo on Thursday. I heard a lecture entitled “From the waters of the mountain to landscape” by Mr Augustin Berque who received the Fukuoka prize of 2009. He explained the word Shanshui, as it is pronounced in Chinese, in Japanese it is pronounced Sansui, which is a combination of two Chinese character meaning Mountain and water and was first used as a combination on the 3 day of the 3^rd month in the year 353 in the 40 poems written in the Orchid Pavilion.

This talk dealt with the beginning of appreciating landscape and how this has affected our way of living now.

At the moment I am reading the book written by Ken Follet “The Pillars of the Earth”. In the past living in a city is where civilised people lived with a wall surrounding their city. Outside were the outlaws.

Once landscape was appreciated houses, castles and estates were built with a “view” or surrounded by landscape gardens to improve the view. Landscape ikebana is one step further by bringing the view into the house or “tokonoma”, the special alcove in a Japanese house where one displays objects of art and flower arrangements.

Back to my lesson, my teacher had a choice for us of either doing an arrangement in a basket with autumn flowers and plants, a rimpa arrangement or a free style.

I usually would have opted for one of the first two, but wanted to relax so I did the free style.

At home I used another container, a present from Mrs.K, Professor K’s wife.

Same material in a different vase, at home.

Nowadays we are free to live where we like. We can live in the suburb to enjoy the landscape. In the lecture the role of the use of the car to seek the landscape and thereby unwittingly destroying it was an interesting point.

Vase

Side view

* Bittersweet vine, Ilex, is not popular as it can destroy trees.

Are we the same as bittersweet vine ?

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References: Orchid Pavilion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lantingji_Xu

Mr. Augustin Berque: http://www.asianmonth.com/prize/english/20/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukuoka_Asian_Culture_Prize#Past_Laureates

Cyclamen

To answer my friend's question to why I called my blog cyclamen.

Cyclamen is maybe the second flower I loved. It meant picnics under olive trees in Lebanon and us children (at that time) picking cyclamen flowers that grew wild and smelt so good.

It does not seem to be a very popular flower used in ikebana. I have used it for my arrangement during the Ikebana International world convention in 2006 and also as in the picture of my blog.

During the world convention, I had no time to take a picture myself as I was very busy.

Then I used white cyclamen that looked like butterflies to me.

Here are pictures of my other arrangement during the autumn festival celebrating the 10th anniversary of Morinosato citizen's hall, last autumn 2008.

The container is a small rectangular flat container.

On the right side is a stone with moss on it.

Material: Pine, Japanese Pieris, Sasa bamboo, cyclamen flowers and leaves, moss.

I just love these delicate flowers as well as the heart shaped leaves.

Nowadays there are many bigger varieties, but I always like the small one with the soft fragrance.

One of the larger potted plants with one very interesting 2 toned flower.

Cyclamen planted under bamboo

Happy Birthday this Monday

Happy Birthday Professor K. I remember the day you asked me if I would like to go to a Japanese flower arranging lesson.
Your secretary was happy to accompany me and translate for me. I had just arrived in Japan and was surprised that such an eminent Professor would even bother to ask a young researcher like me.

So thanks to you, I had my first ikebana lesson that Friday afternoon. On Monday morning after the departmental meeting your secretary asked me to go to your office. You had something to tell me. I was quite worried.

There you were standing at the door and then proceeded to demonstrate the proper way to take off one’s shoes before going into a Japanese house. Also, never to put my feet on the ground where the shoes are and then ….I was stifling a giggle of relief and disbelief.

This was over 30 years ago and I still go to my ikebana lesson on Friday afternoon.

Thank you Professor and happy birthday for this Monday.

My ikebana arrangement at the 30th anniversary exhibition of the Ohara School Machida Chapter. A 2 liter bottle to indicate the size.

My arrangement in the middle seen with others in the corner for natural arrangements.

Ohara School, a brief introduction 2.

In the last blog I wrote a brief introduction to the Ohara School.

I had two questions: one from a friend asking what I meant by styles showing water.

The other question was in the comments about Houn Ohara's exhibition after World War II.

To answer the first question, in the past ikebana arrangements were made in copper container or other vases in an upright style. With moribana in a shallow container a larger surface of water can be seen.

Rabbit ear iris, pinks and St. John's wort with the water surface showing

At a workshop on the 14th of June 2009.

So as was said before the 1st Headmaster of the Ohara School, Unshin Ohara introduced the moribana style.

The second Headmaster Koun gave lessons in a classroom using a blackboard to explain. He also had a radio program. He introduced many innovative ways of teaching.

Now, to answer the second question, the third Headmaster Houn made a big arrangement in the show window of Daimaru department store in 1945, just after the end of the World War II. It was with the back ground of the painter Kakuzo Inoue. The material was a fig tree charred from the war, upside down with the roots at the top and with red flowers. The arrangement was significant by giving hope and lifting up the spirit of those who saw it.

His student Mrs. Ellen Gordon Allen received her certificate in 1951. After leaving Japan, she came back and founded Ikebana International in 1956.

Houn Ohara was good friends with other flower masters, especially the Headmaster of the Sogetsu School.

One way of securing flowers in a shallow container is by using a pin holder (kenzan), another way can be done using a holder called shippo.

Rabbit ear iris and cow lilly

Closer view of the shippo holders

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.