Since its origins in the sixthcentury ikebana has been as much a philosophy as an art with its roots in Zen Buddism and a reverence for nature. Over hundreds of years it has developed a complex set of unwritten rules that take a lifetime to master. But in recent years the distinctive look of ikebana with its love of the asymmetric shapes to be found in nature and its willingness to embrace simple natural materials has found a new audience and opened the eyes of a generation of artists to a