Sep.08 2024 Shansuikei Demo in JCCC

参考两个male老师的demonstration

 Before I start demonstration. I would like to briefly talk about the history of shoka shofutai.

As you may know, Ikenobo is the oldest school of Japanese flower arrangements. It was established in 16th century, Muromachi era.  It has at least 9 yakuedas. It uses many kinds of materials and you have to follow many strict rules to make one arrangement. Because of its complexity, it was popular only among aristocratic families, royal families and of course, temples, where it originated from. 

When time went by, in late 17th century to early 18 century, a new form of ikenobo was established, which was shoka shofutai.

Shoka shofutai’s establishment had many reasons. The most important and major one came from arranger’s minds.  Around that time, they started to realize that, using lot of materials to work together to build magnificent and complicated rikka arrangements was great, but respecting or showing the beauty, the feeling and character ( sussho) of an individual, specific plant was equally very important and necessary.

Shussho is ,how the plants grow and show their individual characteristics. 

Second reason came from society. At that time , Economic was booming. More and more families had interest in flower arrangements. The need to simplify the flower arranging process so middle class, wealthy families can accept arose.  

So , having these thoughts in mind, several headmasters at that time took many years to think and practice. Finally by extracting three yakueda from rikka ( shin, soe, nagashi )  , they formed shoka shofuta, so shin soe nagashi became shin soe and tai in Shoka shofutai. Shin represents human beings, soe represents heaven and tai represents earth. So human beings are living between heaven and earth. The shoka arrangement has in and yo that represents the balance of the universe. 

1. Speaking of its structure, Shoka can be composed of one, two or three different kinds of floral materials. The most efficient way to describe a plant’s shussho is Ishuike , using one kind of material to make arrangements. Shoka with two kinds of materials is called Nishuike. The beauty of Nishuike is to showing the contrast of these two plants.  Especially when sometimes arranging with a plant that has no flower, it is conventional to add a plant that does have a flower to complement the first one to better express seasonal or environmental atomsphere, which is Nishuike. 

2. Sanshuike, on the other hand, which uses three kinds of plants, is a relatively new form. It was developed in postwar modern society when country continued to open and more and more flowers were imported into Japan.  Compared to ishuike and Nishuike, Sanshuike allows for much more expressions and flexibility suitable for modern times. The beauty of Sansuike is to show the harmony of three different plants. So If you want to do a very traditional shoka, usually we use one material. But today Betty Senshei told me to show you the fun part of doing the shoka, so I am going to do a Sanshuike.

3. Today’s material for Sanshuike is: rose hips, lieanthes and aspdistra. 

4. So I am going to start arranging now. 

 

5. About Mizigiwa:     Mizigiwa literally means water’s edge. In shoka shofutai, it refers two things. First, it refers to the centre of the vase where stems emerge from the water. Secondly, it refers the portion of the stems between the surface of the water and the height of 3 to 8cm. A:In this portion, there should not be any attached stems or leaves to be seen. B:It should slender and smooth. C: And no matter how many stems comprise the mizigiwa of shoka, if you stand in front of the arrangement, it should always appear as one single stem. 

6. About Fixing floral materials in the vase:  komiwara ( straw), matagi or hanakubari, Kenzan ( spike frog )

7.  in shoka shofutai, shin’s flow is first going towards yo side, along with the soe, when it reaches a point which is called kosi, it will change the course and start to come back towards the centre, finally the tip of the shin should return to a point directly over the base of the mizigiwa.???

8. western floral material: 洋桔梗（lisianthus or bluebell), rose、lily, carnation, agapanthus, Inca lily, 康乃馨、 百子蓮、 白頭翁、六出花、等等都是進口花材,