ike-bana

Updated: June 6, 2025

The ike-bana as conceived and practised in Japan is a science to which ladies, and gentlemen also, devote absorbing attention. It will be understood that to the pastimes mentioned above as originating in military times must be added others bequeathed from previous eras.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era

But it shows abundant evidence of the elaborate care bestowed upon it by generation after generation of Japanese dilettanti. The English language furnishes no accurate equivalent for what the Japanese call ike-bana. The literal meaning of the term is "living flower," and this name well explains the fundamental principle of the art, namely, the arrangement of flowers so as to suggest natural life.

F. (Frank) Brinkley - A History of the Japanese People : From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era