生花

About this photo

This photograph shows women arranging flowers. It appears in Kyoto Meishocho (Album of Famous Places in Kyoto), published in 1907 (Meiji 40). A photograph of the tea ceremony appears on the same page, which introduces Kyoto's traditional arts.

Ikebana was born in Kyoto. In 1462, the diary Hekizan Nichiroku, kept by a monk of Tofukuji temple, records that Ikenobo Senkei, a monk of Rokkakudo temple, arranged flowers and plants in a gold vase and won the praise of the people of Kyoto. This is the first record linking the Ikenobo name with ikebana. The name Ikenobo, "the lodging by the pond," came about because the head priests of Rokkakudo lived beside a pond.

The Meiji Restoration and the move of the capital to Tokyo brought hard times to the Kyoto-based Ikenobo school. Its head, Ikenobo Sensho, taught at a girls' school run by Kyoto Prefecture from 1879 and worked to bring ikebana education to women. Today the head priest of Rokkakudo still serves as head of the Ikenobo school.

Glossary