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II. THREE FUNDAMENTAL FORMS OF FLOWER ARRANGEMENT—SHIN, GYO, SO

Our common sense tells us that a tree or plant which has grown tall and straight, with its branches or leaves spreading in four directions in an orderly and luxuriant manner, may be said to have a good and beautiful form. In flower arrangement, however, a tree is purposely twisted, with a branch or two taken away from it, and some leaves torn off; and though it has lost its seeming balance in form and is apparently ugly in shape, it is considered to be interesting and even beautiful.

A certain book on floral art says that what appears to be symmetry to the ordinary eye is of a lower kind, but that the symmetry which may be found in apparent irregularity is of a higher kind. The Japanese seek to express this latter kind of symmetry not only in their flower arrangement, but in nearly everything in life. Take for instance the articles used in the dinner service. In Western countries, uniformly made dishes or plates are used, as uniformity is the first requisite of beauty according to Occidental ideas. On the Japanese table, however, will be found no such uniformity but much variety or irregularity: there are dishes of different colouring or plates of dissimilar shapes

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and of various sorts. Yet at such a confusing sight the esthetic sense of the Japanese is not offended but finds gratification.

In a Japanese house there is a tokonoma or alcove in the room where guests are entertained. This alcove is regarded as the most important part of the room. Yet it is not placed in the front part of the room, facing the garden, but it occupies a corner, its two pillars facing each other, one of which is angular, the other round. How has this love of irregularity come about in the mind of the Japanese? It is, I think, born of their love of nature and of their intimacy with it.

As Japan is a small island country situated in the Far East, having very little level ground but abounding in mountains and rivers, she has been endowed by nature with a great variety of natural scenery: her rivers and streams are entrancingly meandering; her mountains are omnipresent; her trees and plants, due to their insecure growth in glens or steep places, are strangely twisted. To Westerners, who have been accustomed to see trees and plants grow straight, these twisted or dwarfed natural objects of Japan may appear unnatural and consequently ugly, but to the Japanese people who have been brought up to love variety or irregularity in everything, they are quite interesting and indeed beautiful. And so it often happens that a tree of natural growth is thought by the people of Japan to be quite commonplace and uninteresting.

So nature is rich in variety in Japan, and this has profoundly influenced the life and the esthetic consciousness of the people so that the idea has come to be

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formed in their minds that what makes things interesting is irregularity, and variety has come to be regarded as an indispensable feature of beauty. This, however, does not mean that Japanese flower arrangement recognizes no beauty of symmetry or of regularity, or that only things that are twisted, crooked, or irregularly shaped interest the Japanese people. They know and appreciate, of course, the beauty which comes from symmetry or regularity, and in their flower arrangement, such symmetry or regularity is called shin (elaborate), which is regarded as the correct form of beauty in this art. The contrary of this form of beauty, or irregularity, is called sō (abbreviated). The form which comes between shin and sō is named gyō (intermediary). These three constitute the fundamental forms of the art of flower arrangement in Japan.

Sō signifies “simple,” and is at the bottom of the scale of beauty. But today sō and gyō are considered to be more important than shin, and in fact, very few people now pay much attention to this correct form of arrangement, or shin in ikebana. Lately, people have come even to discard such distinctions as they feel no necessity to make them. It was in the early days of the historical development of the art that these distinctions were made, and that the shin form was very highly thought of. This was roughly from 1400 to 1600, or during the periods of Higashiyama, of Momoyama, and the early days of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

The reason why these distinctions have come to be discarded is because the patronage of the art has shifted from the aristocracy to the people. There may

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be some women of the upper classes today who are still eager to learn the art of flower arrangement because they find some interest in it; they do not study it, I am sure, because they feel any need of the knowledge of the art in their daily life as was so in former days. In the early days of flower arrangement some knowledge of the art was indispensable to aristocrats, since flowers were always used in their ceremonies and banquets. And according to the degree of solemnity of the ceremony or the quality of the entertainment at the table, either the shin form, the gyō form or the sō form was approved and selected. But with the coming of the Meiji Restoration (1868), the social distinctions which had hitherto existed were abolished, and the aristocrats or nobles had to abandon their patrician ways of living. Thus, the differentiations in the form of flower arrangement which had depended on social distinctions became unnecessary and useless.

There is in Japan at the head of the nobles the Imperial Family, and the art of flower arrangement has had some place in the culture of the members of the Imperial Household. The art, however, belonged primarily to the warrior class. Because of this, and also because of court custom, the ceremonies at court have made very little use of the art, although there were some rulers, such as Emperor Gomizunowo, who showed a deep interest in it. Today, there are still many nobles or aristocrats in Japan, but their mode of life does not greatly differ from that of the common people as far as matters of food, shelter and clothing are concerned. The only difference is that among

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the nobility and aristocracy there is an abundance of luxury. Thus, one might say that with the coming of the new era the culture peculiar to the aristocratic class came to an end, which virtually did away with the three fundamental forms of flower arrangement.