The scollop-winged Oak Moth (Phalæna Oo), The yellow Rose (Rosa Gallica) (1773)
兽亚纲
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast amber
- slightly upright 1.26 : 1
First Look
夫象物必在于形似，形似须全其骨气。
—— 唐·张彦远《历代名画记》
Likeness is the threshold; bone-and-breath is the point.
Slightly taller than wide; the eye lands above centre. Then step in close: watch where colour meets line, and whether the line ever breaks. Third, find where the red is deepest: the whole tonal order is measured from that patch.
Name and Thing
Only the genus Rosa is given; species-level names came later. The Chinese name 兽亚纲 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 17.3% of the sheet, foliage 12.3%, the cast amber 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. Filed under red — a red close to carmine, built in washes from a pale ground. A single plant, laid out with nothing hidden.
Composition
The sheet is slightly tall. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant takes about 33% of the sheet, centred below centre — the easy measure most florists kept to.
Line and Colour
Eighteenth-century plates are mostly copper engraving: hatched lines for shadow, then hand-colouring by another hand. Take a loupe to three places: petal edge, leaf vein, caption. An unbroken line means engraving; colour crossing the outline means a hand. 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
有情芍药含春泪，无力蔷薇卧晓枝。
—— 宋·秦观《春日》
The peony, feeling, holds spring tears; the rose, strengthless, lies across the morning branch.
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the red 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. This plate leans red, which in flower language adds one more degree of feeling. 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 1749 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. Read the locality and the flowering season both with a discount: one is hearsay, the other a ten-day peak.
The Book and the Hand
“Benjamin Wilkes” carries only Benjamin Wilkes's name. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.
What to Take Away
If you keep one line, keep Guo Xi's: from afar its momentum, up close its texture. The flower of that year is dust, yet its image on paper has outlived every living cousin.
About this plate
The scollop-winged Oak Moth (Phalæna Oo), The yellow Rose (Rosa Gallica) (1773) is plate 110, from Benjamin Wilkes, drawn by Benjamin Wilkes. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: English, ?-1749.
