Rosenstück mit Schmetterlingen am Waldbach
Rosenstück mit Schmetterlingen am Waldbach
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast amber
- slightly upright 1.14 : 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.
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 orange is deepest: the whole tonal order is measured from that patch.
Name and Thing
No reliable binomial survives, so the printed title must serve. Neither name nor binomial survives: the printed title must do.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 32.4% of the sheet, foliage 6.6%, the cast amber with a second note of yellow-green. 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 orange — an amber orange, built in washes from a pale ground. Three things fix the habit: leaf arrangement, tepal count, and how the flower is borne.
Composition
The sheet is slightly tall. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant fills 40% of the sheet, centred near the centre — the herbarium way, drawn to be read whole.
Line and Colour
The first half of the nineteenth century moved from copper to steel to lithography; stipple could render the softest transition. 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
芙蓉浪中蔷薇水，苏合蜣蜋忘彼己。
—— 宋·文天祥《赠拆字嗅衣相士》
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 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 orange, 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. the ever-blooming modern rose is a nineteenth-century crossing of European and Chinese stock. The year 1818 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. See this kind of plate in the flowering season if you can: once you have met the living flower, you stop reading only colour.
The Book and the Hand
“Josef Lauer” carries only Josef Lauer's name. From drawing to plate the sheet passed through several hands — the engraver aimed at accuracy, the colourist at speed, and between them lies each plate's unevenness.
What to Take Away
Next time you stand before a flowering plant, give it three minutes: leaf arrangement, direction of the flower, the darkest patch. A flora exists to be consulted; look long enough and you forget to consult — someone in 1818 gave a whole day to a single flower.
About this plate
Rosenstück mit Schmetterlingen am Waldbach is plate 31, from Josef Lauer, drawn by Josef Lauer. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: Austrian, 1818–1881.
