Ikebana Unbound: A Modern Approach to the Ancient Japanese Art of Flower Arranging

Floral designers Luu and Matsuba’s elegant offering offers a contemporary take on Ikebana, an ancient Japanese flower arranging tradition. The book is divided into sections covering Ikebana’s four central themes: naturalness, movement, balance, and simplicity. The authors lay out step-by-step guidance for a variety of arrangements (with helpful photographs) and detail each step involved, from choosing the vase and its accoutrements to the types of plants and how to position them. Luu and Matsuba also show that Ikebana is not simply a decorative medium, but a way of using the elements of form, color, placement, and symbolism to evoke times of year and works of art. In “Naturalness,” for example, the “Cresting Wave” arrangement recalls, via strategically placed Japanese andromeda, a cascading vine of jasmine, and “Hungarian Rhapsody” daffodils takes inspiration from the classic Hokusai print The Great Wave off Kanagawa. For “Movement,” Luu and Matsuba highlight an arrangement of purple lilacs, silvervein creeper vines, and columbine, organized according to a traditional Japanese motif of “two strong principal stems crossing, moving inward,” to symbolize the transition from winter to spring. This graceful book will enable even the amateur arranger to appreciate and participate in a beautiful tradition. (Sept.)