Vanitas-Stillleben (1637)

Ten ways of seeing

• measured cast amber
• slightly upright 1.18 : 1
• published 1613
• Plate 62

Not a catalogue entry but a way of looking: how to stand, what to notice, how the line was cut — then, halfway, a line of Chinese poetry: how the ancients saw this same flower. After it, the flower's language, its season and homeland, its book; and at the end one line of classical prose — and a pair of eyes to take away.

1. 01

   First Look

   江馆清秋，晨起看竹，烟光日影露气，皆浮动于疏枝密叶之间。

   —— 清·郑板桥《题画竹》

   On an autumn morning at the river lodge I looked at the bamboo: mist, sunlight, dew, all drifting among the sparse and dense leaves.

   Slightly taller than wide; the eye lands on the bird's head, a little above centre. 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.

2. 02

   Name and Thing

   No reliable binomial survives, so the printed title must serve. Neither name nor binomial survives: the printed title must do.

3. 03

   Form and Colour

   Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 17.8% of the sheet, foliage 0.1%, the cast amber with a second note of yellow-green. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Insect plates show the host plant and all four stages at once — egg, larva, pupa, adult — with wing venation, scales and antennal segments accounted for: the most technical branch of natural-history art. Filed under orange — an amber orange. Feather colour is structure, not pigment: light bent by barbules. Read the outline, then the colour layers, then the brush.

4. 04

   Composition

   Slightly taller than wide, the bird set a little above centre, the eye landing at head and bill. (about 1.18 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 22% of the sheet, centred below centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests. Cover the margins with your thumb and the plate suffocates; uncover them and the flower breathes again.

5. 05

   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.

6. 06

   Poetic Resonance

   穿花蛱蝶深深见，点水蜻蜓款款飞。

   —— 唐·杜甫《曲江二首》

   Butterflies thread the flowers, seen deep within; dragonflies touch the water and fly on, slow and deliberate.

   The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the orange the bird itself becomes its resting point.

7. 07

   Symbolism

   In China the butterfly is dream and lovers, the cicada purity, the firefly a lamp for reading; in Europe the insect began as specimen before it became symbol. 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.

8. 08

   Season and Place

   Set by life stage: butterflies in spring and summer, moths into autumn, beetles from May to July. Four stages on one sheet span a whole year. Merian's Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (1705) first showed insect stages with their host plants — the result of raising caterpillars in the Surinam forest with her daughters. The year 1613 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. The volume was made in 1613-1681, when most of this knowledge came from living plants under glass.

9. 09

   The Book and the Hand

   “Jacob Marrel” was drawn by Jacob Marrel and published 1613-1681. This plate is Plate 62. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.

10. 10

    The Written Tradition

    气之动物，物之感人，故摇荡性情，形诸舞咏。

    —— 南朝梁·钟嵘《诗品序》

    The vital breath moves things, things move men, and the stirred heart takes shape in song.

    The Book of Songs notes which insects stir in which month — one of the earliest phenologies; the Bencao Gangmu lists a hundred insects under medicine. Keep the line; it will surface the next time you meet the same plant.