About Ohara School of Ikebana

The Ohara School of Ikebana:
A Legacy of Innovation and Tradition

The Ohara School of Ikebana, known for its innovative approach, combines traditional ikebana techniques with modern aesthetics, creating arrangements that reflect the natural beauty of each season. With a focus on balance, color, and form, Ohara Ikebana celebrates 130 years of connecting flowers, space, and the artist’s vision, making it a timeless and inspiring practice for floral enthusiasts.

Founded by Unshin Ohara in 1895, the Ohara School revolutionized the art of Japanese flower arranging. This period coincided with Japan’s embrace of Western culture, and Ohara’s innovations reflected this cultural shift. Central to the school’s identity is the Moribana style, a groundbreaking approach that departed from traditional vertical or standing arrangements. Moribana, meaning "arranging flowers in a shallow container," features flowers "piled up" (moru) in flat, plate-like containers. This style not only preserved the principles of traditional Ikebana but also resonated with the living spaces of the time, making it accessible and widely appreciated.

Moribana arrangements often depict natural scenery within a vessel, showcasing either the serene beauty of landscapes or the vibrant hues of Western flowers. Among its variations, Shikisai Moribana emphasizes the vivid colors and textures of exotic blooms, blending Eastern and Western aesthetics. This innovation was a sensational development in the Ikebana world, as it allowed artists to transform simple floral materials into stunning works of art.

Over time, the Ohara School has continued to introduce new styles, reflecting its commitment to adapting to modern living while staying true to its rich heritage. These include:

Hana-isho: A versatile form designed to harmonize with contemporary spaces, Hana-isho celebrates the arranger’s individuality while offering an accessible entry point for beginners. Students learn foundational techniques and principles that form the basis of Ohara Ikebana.

Heika: This style utilizes tall, narrow vases to create elegant arrangements that emphasize verticality and refinement.

Hanamai: A sculptural approach to Ikebana, Hanamai highlights the three-dimensional beauty of plants, creating dynamic and visually striking compositions.

Hana-kanade: This is the latest Ikebana expression in the Ohara school, which was created by the fifth headmaster, Hiroki Ohara. Traditionally, Ikebana has been arranged to spread outward. In this new style, the arrangement uses materials facing inward, creating a unique shape from the intersecting flowers, to create three-dimensional beauty.

Ohara School of Ikebana
Standard Forms and Styles

Basic Hana-isho
This is a decorative type of ikebana that emphasizes the individual characteristics of materials in compositions for display in the places where people live and work.

1) Rising Form
2) Inclining Form

Special characteristics:
1. It is a free kind of ikebana that even beginners can arrange easily.
2. It is not merely for mastering ikebana techniques, but can be adapted to everyday life, since it is suitable even for small rooms or spaces.
3. The compositions are simple and beautiful, and you can enjoy expressing the beauty of color combinations, form and the seasons.
4. With Hana-isho, you are able to display fully your individuality, because you can arrange the principal and auxiliary stems freely according to the characteristics of the materials.
5. There are two principal stems, the Subject and the Object.

Advanced Hana-isho

After practicing Basic Hana-isho, the student proceeds to Advanced Hana-isho. Like the Basic forms, Advanced Hana-isho is a kind of ikebana that makes the most of the unique characteristics of the materials in highly decorative compositions created for the places where people live and work. In addition, some forms can be composed to be viewed from one side only, whereas others can be created to be viewed from many sides.

1) Radial Form
2) Linear Form
3) Circular Form
4) Combined form

Special features:
1. They can be created to decorate any kind of space. Possible containers include articles used in daily life.
2. Some arrangements are composed to be viewed only from the front, but multisided arrangements can also be created to harmonize with the space being decorated.
3. While the beauty of color is central to creating Hana-isho, combinations of materials that express seasonal beauty or formal, sculptural beauty are also possible.
4. The length of the main stems and auxiliary stems, their angles and the positions at which they are inserted are free.
5. With the exception of the Combined Form, all forms of Advanced Hana-isho have three main stems, the Subject, the Secondary, and the Object.
6. The Radial Form can be arranged either in a shallow container or in a tall vase.

Ohara School of Ikebana Demonstration arrangements by Nakaba Emtesali

MORIBANA

Originated by the First Headmaster Unshin Ohara, this is ikebana where materials are arranged as if they are piled up in low flat containers with a wide surface area of water. It includes the Color Scheme Moribana, which expresses beauty of color, and the Landscape Moribana, in which the beauty of natural scenery is represented.

In Moribana, as in Advanced Hana-isho, there are three principal stems - the Subject, the Secondary, and the Object. These stems from the basic framework of various styles. Intermediaries called Filler stems, are freely added to the principal stems. There are three Moribana Styles:

1) The Upright Style
2) The Slanting Style
3) The Water-Reflecting Style

The Color Scheme Moribana

The main aim lies in the beauty of harmony and contrast of materials. There are two methods: The Color Method and the Traditional Method.

a. The Color Method in the Color Scheme Moribana - This is a technique with free choice of materials by which to express the beauty of color through the color, shape, and texture of various plants.

b. The Traditional Method in the Color Scheme Moribana - This is technique by which the beauty of color is brought out based on set rules for materials as well as method of arrangement.

The Landscape Moribana

This is a type of Moribana in which natural landscapes are represented in the limited space of flower containers. There are two methods: the Traditional Method and the Realistic Method.

a. The Traditional Method in the Landscape Moribana - This is a technique to express the beauty of scenery using limited materials, and arranging methods prescribed for these materials while observing their natural growth.

b. The Realistic Method in the Landscape Moribana - This is a technique to express scenic beauty by understanding the natural growth, environment, and the seasonal aspect of the material, and by mixing in the subjectivity and impressions of the arranger.

Also, Landscape Moribana may be divided into three views: Far, Middle and Near. The Far-View Depiction takes tall trees as its main subject, and may depict a tall, densely wooded forest at the foot of a distant range of mountains, a large tree towering over a field, a huge, aged pine tree along a sea cost. In the Middle-View Depiction, the focus moves closer to scenes of dense growth, with smaller trees becoming the major theme and low shrubs used as the chief materials. In the Near-View Depiction, the point of view moves in even closer to flowers and grasses blooming at the base of trees and other scenes portrayed as if they actually exist before one's eyes.

HEIKA

Where as Moribana was originated and developed by the Ohara School, Heika, literally "vase flowers," is part of the ancient historical tradition of ikebana. Unlike Moribana, which is done in flat containers, Heika is created in tall, deep containers like vases and pots. The essential difference between the two is the way branches are arranged and fixed in position.
There are three established floral styles in Heika:

1) The Slanting Style
2) The Upright Style
3) The Cascading Style.

Rimpa

Riｍpa-cho Ikebana is an arrangement that expresses the pictorial world drawn by Rimpa painters in the Edo period with flowers. It is a unique arrangement that "has a decorative effect", and contrary to the above-mentioned Landscape Arrangement the Realistic Method, it should not give a "realistic feeling". Based on the Rimpa painting techniques of "omission," "exaggeration," and "design," it is arranged as if you were painting on a golden silk screen regardless of the flower’s nature.

Hanamai

Hanamai expresses the beauty of plants brought out by their mutual interacting in three dimensional space.

Special characteristics:
There is no distinction between main material and auxiliary materials. Compared with the set floral styles of the Ohara School, Hanamai does not have fixed rules as to the length of stems. In fact, there are no rules governing the size, angle, or direction of materials. To capture the sculptural beauty of the materials, themselves leads naturally to the expression of three-dimensional beauty in Hanamai. Therefore, it is necessary to take a flexible approach and develop a good eye for the colors, forms, and textures of the materials. Different materials may approach, touch, overlap, mix, or interlace with each other to create beauty through contrast or through harmony. The basic standard is to use two materials, while three materials would be the limit.

Hana-kanade

This is the latest Ikebana expression in the Ohara school, which was created by the fifth headmaster, Hiroki Ohara. Traditionally, Ikebana has been arranged to spread outward. In this new style, the arrangement uses materials facing inward, creating a unique shape from the intersecting flowers, to create three-dimensional beauty.

It has been said that this is a groundbreaking ikebana style designed to show flowers artistically in a limited modern space.

Serving Area

Poway, CA
San Diego, CA
Escondido, CA
Del Mar, CA
Solana Beach, CA
Encinitas, CA
Cardiff, CA
San Marcos, CA
Rancho Santa Fe, CA
Santee, CA

Contacts

Email: ikebanaflowerarts@gmail.com
Phone: (619) 807 6939
Submit: Inquiry Form
Submit: Order Request Form

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Affiliation

• San Diego Wabi Chapter
• Ohara School of Ikebana
• Ikebana International San Diego Chapter
• North American Ohara Teachers Association
• Golden Door
• UCSD Craft Center
• Poway Adult School
• Poway Unified School District
• San Diego Oasis

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The Ohara School of Ikebana: A Legacy of Innovation and Tradition

Ohara School of IkebanaStandard Forms and Styles