JAPANESE FLOWER ARRANGEMENT 



been given to preservatives had not this de- 

 sire predominated in all their floral offerings. 



Quaint and mythical as these ideas appear, 

 to them the beauty of line is due, and we 

 cannot but doubt if the same results could 

 ever have been achieved by commonplace 

 thoughts. 



The idea of good and evil fortune governs 

 both selection of material and form of ar- 

 rangement. The colors of some flowers are 

 considered unlucky. Red flowers, which are 

 used at funerals, are undesirable not only for 

 that reason, but also because red is supposed 

 to suggest the red flames of a fire. An odd 

 number of flowers is lucky, while even 

 numbers are unlucky and therefore unde- 

 sirable, and never used in flower arrange- 

 ments. With the odd numbers one avoids 

 symmetry and equal balance, which are 

 actually seldom found in nature, and which 

 from the Japanese standpoint are never 

 attractive in art of any description. 



The different members of the group in a 

 flower arrangement are distinguished by such 



[36] 



