Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/29

Rh game. But some credit may be claimed for a society which occupied itself with such refined pastimes rather than with roulette, faro, or poker.

Another remarkable outcome of the Military epoch was the art of flower arrangement. The name applied to it, ike-bana, or "living flower," explains at once the fundamental principle of the art; namely, that the flowers must be so arranged as to suggest the idea of actual life,—must look as though they were growing, not as though they had been cut from their stems. In the Occident flowers, whether grouped in bouquets or placed in vases, are disposed with a unique view to colour effect. They are crushed together in glowing masses, delighting the barbaric sense of colour but preserving no semblance of the conditions of their living existence. From a decorative point of view the Western method has much to recommend it. But its scope is narrow, and when compared with the art as practised in Japan, the great advantages of the latter are necessarily recognised. The Japanese considers that the beauty of a plant or a tree is not derived from its blossoms more than from the manner of their growth. The curve of a bough, the bend of a stalk, has for him a charm equal to that presented by the shape of the petal and the tint of the blossoms. Hence in arranging flowers he seeks to retain all the graces that they possess in their natural