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 Ikebana, one of the traditional arts of Japan, has been practiced for
more than six hundred years. It developed from the Buddhist ritual of offering
flowers to the spirits of dead.
By the middle of the fifteenth century, with the emergence of the first
classical styles, ikebana achieved the status of an art form independent
of its religious origins, though it continued to retain strong symbolic
and philosophical overtones. The first teachers and students were priests
and members of the nobility, but as time passed, many schools arose, styles
changed, and ikebana came to be practiced at all levels of Japanese society.
 The varying forms of ikebana share certain common features, regardless
of the period or school. Any plant material - branches, leaves, grasses,
moss and fruit, as well as flowers - may be used. Withered leaves, seedpods
and buds are valued as highly as flowers in full bloom. While a work may
be composed of only one, or of many different kinds of materials, the selection
of each element demands an experienced eye, and the arrangement requires
considerable technical skill in order to create a kind of beauty that cannot
be found in nature.
 What distinguish ikebana from simpler decorative approaches is its asymmetrical
form and the use of "empty" space as an essential feature of
the composition. A sense of harmony among the materials, the container
and the setting is also crucial. these are characteristics of the Japanese
aesthetic feeling that ikebana shares with traditional paintings, gardens,
architecture and design.
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