Ikebana: The Art and Beauty of Flower Arranging

A scholarly and visually arresting celebration of ikebana — the Japanese art of flower arranging — through meticulous reproductions of seventeenth-century artworks from the Spencer Collection at the New York Public Library. The arrangements shown belong to the rikka tradition, the oldest form of ikebana, originating with the Ikenobō school and characterised by marked verticality, harmonious balance between foliage and branch, and the expression of a natural landscape within a single vase.

The works date to the Ikenobō Grand Master of Kyoto's Rokkakudō Temple and were documented in 1673, printed xylographically and hand-coloured in gansai watercolour. Accompanied by authoritative text from one of the world's leading authorities on Japanese art, this is both an art historical document and a quietly beautiful object — presented in an illustrated slipcase, and as considered in its making as the practice it describes.