Rosa indigossa (1799)
蔷薇目
Rosa indigossa (1799)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast yellow-green
- upright 1.42 : 1
First Look
凡画山水，意在笔先。
—— 唐·王维《山水论》
In painting, the intention precedes the brush.
The sheet is vertical: the eye climbs and settles in the upper half. Let the plant stand before you look for detail. Then step in close: watch where colour meets line, and whether the line ever breaks. Third, find the darkest small patch: the whole tonal order is measured from there.
Name and Thing
The binomial is Rosa indigossa: the first word is the genus it belongs among, the second the epithet that sets it apart. The genus name Rosa: Rosa is simply the Latin for rose, from Greek rhodon. The Chinese name 蔷薇目 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 2.7% of the sheet, foliage 5.4%, the cast yellow-green with a second note of red. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Roses are shrubs or scramblers with pinnate leaves of three to seven serrated leaflets; the double flowers open in crumpled, inward-curling layers around a small knot of yellow stamens.No colour group is recorded. Three things fix the habit: leaf arrangement, tepal count, and how the flower is borne.
Composition
The sheet is tall. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 9% of the sheet, centred near the centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests.
Line and Colour
Eighteenth-century plates are mostly copper engraving: hatched lines for shadow, then hand-colouring by another hand. Craft leaves franker evidence than inscriptions. If you mean to copy it: take its skeleton, its margins and the order of its colours; the burin's hatching is the language of copper — suggest it with pencil density, do not imitate it stroke for stroke.
Poetic Resonance
水晶帘动微风起，满架蔷薇一院香。
—— 唐·高骈《山亭夏日》
The crystal blind stirs as a breeze rises; a trellis of roses perfumes the whole courtyard.
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the corolla becomes its resting point.
Symbolism
In Europe the rose means love and secrecy ('sub rosa'); in Chinese verse the rambling rose leans and clings — lingering attachment rather than ardour. Flower language was added later; the flower knows nothing of it, and that innocence is part of its power.
Season and Place
Late spring into early summer, peaking in May — the first flush of the garden year. Widespread in the temperate north. Chinese gardeners knew roses since the Han. The year 1799 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. The bud and the ripe fruit on one branch tell the season; the name in the title often tells the journey.
The Book and the Hand
“A collection of roses from nature” carries only Mary Lawrence's name. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.
What to Take Away
Appreciation is not knowledge but habit — one more look each time. Two centuries on, the plant may still flower in some garden; the one on this sheet stopped in the season of 1799.
About this plate
Rosa indigossa (1799) is plate 6, from A collection of roses from nature, drawn by Mary Lawrence. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: London, 1799.
