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context: gardens > flower arranging
Rikyu
Sen no Rikyu was an important influence on flower arranging, as on so much else. He was a key figure in moving from lavish and ostentatious arrangements to smaller, simpler, even austere designs, including the ichiren, or one-flower arrangement, which is considered an extremely difficult skill.
There is a famous tale of shogun Hideyoshi heading to Rikyu's tea garden one day, having heard that the morning glories were in bloom and very lovely. He found they had all been lopped off. Entering the tea hut in an angry mood, he was stopped short to see a single morning glory stylishly arranged in the tokonoma. (This scene features at the start of Teshigehara's breathtaking movie 'Rikyu'.)