Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging, is a mode of artistic expression unique to Japan. Since ikebana artists arrange fresh plant material to create works of art, they do not produce works that survive for ages. Their work can, however, be captured and preserved on film.

The ikebana artist YAMANE Suido pioneered photographing ikebana. The founder of the Shinsei school of ikebana, Yamane initially had others photograph his work, but gradually mastered doing it himself. In time, he came to create his arrangements in a studio specifically so that he could take pictures of them. Photographing his work did more than preserve it: Yamane could, through the camera, scrutinize and reappraise his ikebana, in the process becoming even more demanding in the compositions of form he created through line and surface. His photographs are composed only of flower and vase, eliminating all reference to the horizon; the atmosphere is full of creative tension, and we can sense his demanding eye directed at the forms of flowers and leaves in his quest for beauty.

TESHIGAHARA Sofu, like YAMANE Suido, was an ikebana artist who had a thorough understanding of the effectiveness of photography and used it powerfully. Teshigahara hired such distinguished photographers as DOMON Ken, ISHIMOTO Yasuhiro, and SHINOYAMA Kishin to photograph his work so that we may experience it today. In particular, he and DOMON Ken were lifelong friends. In their books IKEBANA and SOFU: His Boundless World of Flowers and Form, we have what is both an ikebana book and a book on photography, a fruitful collaboration between Domon and Sofu. Chabana (Flowers for the Tea Ceremony) was their final work together. Sofu died after its completion, and shortly afterwards, Domon suffered the stroke that left him comatose until his own death. That last work, Chabana, is the ultimate expression of Sofu’s approach to ikebana, which strips off everything to return to its essence, and Domon’s approach to photography, with his advocacy of a nitty-gritty realism that gets as up front and personal with the subject as possible.

NAKAGAWA Yukio’s ikebana is nothing like the graceful arrangements we ordinary associate with the artist. In Hana Bozu, for example, he packed 900 carnations in a glass vessel of his own making, allowed them to ferment, turned the vessel upside down, and photographed the way the red liquid generated by the carnations spread over washi paper. In Hiraku, he spread hemp rope on the bottom of an orange crate, packed the crate tightly with tulip petals, and then took the resulting solidified mass out of the crate and photographed it. Ikebana artists usually are at pains to sustain the beauty of their work as long as possible against the inevitable ravages of time. In these works, however, Nakagawa lets the time that elapses after he has arranged his plant matter create the work and lead it to completion. The photographs record his actions and the passage of time.