Emphasizing ‘White’ to illustrate the Ice Festivals of Sapporo.

I have had many discussions about ‘white’ – is it a colour? There seems to be two schools of thought – white is a colour or not a colour! One school says yes because it comprises of all the hues on the visible light spectrum and the other says no because it does not have specific wavelengths.

I asked Iemoto, Akane Teshigahara this question and the answer was yes, it is a colour. Putting more thought into her answer, I agree with especially for ikebana. If we look closely at the plant world, I don’t think you will ever fine a pure white. All flowers etc. have a slight tinge of different hues such as green, yellow, blue or pink so in the eyes of an ikebana artist we call this material white.

If I really want to be pedantic, I have read there are more than 15000 shades of white, so in ikebana we are pretty safe to say it is a colour

The flowers, Dusty Miller and Chrysanthemums in my arrangement below are placed in two self-carved marble forms