Roses, tulips, an iris and other flowers in a stoneware vase on a ledge with a lizard, stag beetle and snail (1644)
Roses, tulips, an iris and other flowers in a stoneware vase on a ledge with a lizard, stag beetle and snail (1644)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast amber
- upright 1.32 : 1
First Look
真山水之川谷，远望之以取其势，近看之以取其质。
—— 宋·郭熙《林泉高致·山水训》
Mountains and valleys: from afar take their momentum, up close take their texture — the two distances from which any picture is read.
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 where the orange is deepest: the whole tonal order is measured from that patch.
Name and Thing
Only the genus iris is given; species-level names came later. No established Chinese name exists, so it is cited by its binomial alone.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 9.1% of the sheet, foliage 0.3%, the cast amber with a second note of red. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Irises carry rhizomes or bulbs, sword-shaped leaves in two ranks, and six tepals — three falls drooping, often bearded or speckled, three standards erect. Filed under orange — an amber orange, built in washes from a pale ground. A single plant, laid out with nothing hidden.
Composition
The sheet is tall. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 24% of the sheet, centred near the centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests.
Line and Colour
Before 1700 most botanical figures came from woodcut: thick, hard lines in relief, colour brushed on afterwards. Decide first whether it was printed or painted; only then discuss whether it is beautiful. 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
知道君家当瀑布，菖蒲潭在草堂前。
—— 唐·王建《送顧非熊秀才歸丹陽》
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the orange the corolla becomes its resting point.
Symbolism
In China sweet flag hung at the door wards off evil at midsummer; in Europe the iris is the messenger, since Iris was the rainbow goddess who carried divine words. This plate leans orange, which in flower language adds one more degree of feeling. In a flora it is a species first and a symbol second; the order is worth keeping.
Season and Place
Late spring to early summer, peaking in April and May, before the summer rains. in Europe Iris germanica gave the perfume trade its orris root. The year 1613 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
“Jacob Marrel” carries only Jacob Marrel's name. A plate is collective work: drawer, engraver and colourist were different hands, and the unnamed ones decided how good it looks.
What to Take Away
Appreciation is not knowledge but habit — one more look each time. A flora exists to be consulted; look long enough and you forget to consult — someone in 1613 gave a whole day to a single flower.
About this plate
Roses, tulips, an iris and other flowers in a stoneware vase on a ledge with a lizard, stag beetle and snail (1644) is plate 50, from Jacob Marrel, drawn by Jacob Marrel. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: German, 1613-1681.
