The 'Nageire'

LAST winter, for a fortnight, I was a guest at the home of a garden enthusiast on the south shore of Long Island. As a mark of appreciation I arranged for my host and hostess a ‘Nageire’ (pronounced ‘Nah-gayee-ray’) or ‘sketch of Nature,’ with rhododendron and some witch-hazel. Soon the witch-hazel burst through its flower buds, and day by day we watched with delight the quaint and interesting blossoms droop out along the branchlets, enjoying the symbolism of the life-of-springtime in the midst of winter.

In a different room I arranged another Nageire in a round bowl —little beads of pearl-like bayberry and the red berries of June roses against variegated evergreens of juniper steadied by dark red sumach berries. Colorful as a bouquet and sturdy in its arrangement, it made an interesting contrast with the scene of the light snow drifting quietly along the wintry shore beyond the windows.

It has been many years since the Nageire formed the basis of my cultural training in my home in Japan. Once it had been my duty, before leaving each morning for school, to arrange one of these ‘sketches’ for my mother. Returning later, I stole a glance at the Toko no ma (an alcove in the room for decorations) — my Nageire was still there! It had pleased my mother, otherwise one of her own beautiful arrangements would have been in its place. My sketch had spoken to my mother’s heart in accents of poetic sentiment.

‘Nageire’ means ‘carelessly thrown in,’ — nonchalantly or sketchily arranged, unpretentious, — a sketch of Nature, an idea in essence, vividly portrayed through the eternal freshness of simplicity. It was the original Japanese flower arrangement, born in the days of primitive Japan, long before Buddhism had found its way to the Flowery Kingdom. In the latter part of the sixteenth century, Sen no Rikyu, an artist genius of that period, revived it to use in connection with his own idea of the Tea Ceremony. He it was who named it the ‘Nageire,’ and his followers formed the Nageire school of flower arrangement, which they called Sen ke Ko Ryu (‘Sen ke’ from Rikyu’s family name and ‘Ko Ryu’ meaning ‘in the ancient manner’). It is the most cultured and natural style of all Japanese flower arrangement.

But previous to and during the formation of the Sen ke Ko Ryu there existed an opposing school of rigid formalism which also laid claim to the ancient manner, the original form. As followers of So Ami (1450— 1517) the members of this school, though they called their arrangement Ike Bana (‘revived flowers’), themselves dated it from 609 A. D. and Ono no Imoko’s importation of the Chinese manner or Rikka (‘standing flower’), which was of pyramidal form with evergreens or lotus in the centre — a symbol of Buddhism which may be seen even to-day in any Buddhist temple.

It was not long before the trend of fashion forced the adherents of Sen ke Ko Ryu to turn to the affected formalism of Ike Bana. Though they carried along with them their own idealism, the spirit of Rikyu was no longer a characteristic of their work, and very soon the Nageire was left quite alone and almost forgotten in the room of the tea ceremony. Thus it became a Renaissance of the ancient art of flower arrangement. The Ike Bana corresponded to the Gothic, and continued to flourish, reaching the height of its popularity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when it became decidedly rococo. And so it has remained ever since, and stands in modernized Japan alongside the Mori Bana. This arrangement — Mori Bana means ’piles of flowers’ — began as an imitation of the Western bouquet style, and has developed to include the scenic miniature in the bowl or tray. Of this, along with the Ike Bana, much has been written under the spurious title, ‘The Art of Japanese Flower Arrangement.’ There is much of the Mori Bana spirit to be found in America to-day — particularly in the effort to dramatize mechanical formations with cut flowers in a bowl or tray; yet there is also a noticeable turning in the opposite direction, toward simplicity in naturalistic forms, characterized as the Nageire of old Japan. Strange that America is developing while Japan is forgetting!

Let us return now to the old master, Rikyu. Once he banished from the garden path of his tea ceremony all flowering plants, making only one Nageire arrangement in the room. In his own exquisite manner he said, ‘Only one, not too full, not too little — who could not appreciate seeing it after coming through the clean flowerlessness of the garden path?’ And at the autumn show of a Long Island garden club I heard a lady say to the judge, ‘This one is so simple, not so full, yet you gave it the highest prize.’ The judge answered, ‘This arrangement expresses beauty through its reserve; it has a distinct dignity with which none of the others can compete.'

I urge the reader to try for himself one single Nageire, set all alone in a wintertime room — some living, budding thing to unfold its life in snow-time. Learn the joy of beholding each day its simple and refined beauty. For these informal and effective sketch arrangements I would suggest the following delightful combinations of wintertime materials: —

Mugho pine with the red-berry-bearing twigs of the barberry; bright green mountain laurel with the pink-red leucothoe, or mahonia, to which the sumach berries may be added; bayberry and June rose berries with the silvery green of hemlock. Then, too, there are many growing things whose cut branches will blossom in the house at this time of the year: flowering almond, peach, pear, willow, witch-hazel, Hamamelis japonica, Calycanthus prœcox, Cornelian-cherry, Kerria japonica, Japanese quince, azalea, Spirœa thunbergi. Any of these, placed in water, will break out into blossoms with the most delightful effect in our winter-besieged homes, and with them you may make a Nageire sketch which will bring the still far-off springtime to your winter fireside.

SHOGO MYAIDA