Black-breasted Sun-bird (Nectarinia saturata) (1850-1883)
Ten ways of seeing
- upright 1.58 : 1
First Look
论画以形似，见与儿童邻。
—— 宋·苏轼《书鄢陵王主簿所画折枝》
To judge painting by likeness alone is the view of a child.
The sheet is vertical: the eye climbs and settles on the bird. Take the posture before the plumage. 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
No reliable binomial survives, so the printed title must serve. Neither name nor binomial survives: the printed title must do.
Form and Colour
Bird plates usually choose the perched pose: one foot gripping, one loose, the flight feathers laid in first, coverts over them, then the horny gleam of bill and eye.No colour group is recorded. A single plant, laid out with nothing hidden.
Composition
Tall and narrow, the bird perched mid-branch with generous margins above and below. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. Blank paper is not unfinished work: it is where the eye rests.
Line and Colour
In the later nineteenth century chromolithography took over: colour printed rather than painted, line demoted. There is evidence on the back too: the plate mark pressed into the paper, the slight relief of the pigment, lines worn shallow in a later printing. If you mean to copy it: block in the broad shapes and colours first, detail last; lithographic softness comes from thin washes — two or three pale layers will get you close.
Poetic Resonance
愔愔坊陌人家，定巢燕子，归来旧处。
—— 《瑞龙吟·大石春景》
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the bird itself becomes its resting point.
Symbolism
In China the crane is longevity, the magpie joy, the wild goose a letter, the eagle prowess; in the Americas each bird carries a different totem. One bird, unrelated meanings. Meanings change their tune: the same flower can say opposite things within a century.
Season and Place
Bound to migration: north in spring, south in autumn, each species answering to a few weeks. Audubon's plates often read 'adult, spring' — plumage at its height. Audubon's Birds of America (1827–1838) came from specimens he shot himself, wired into lifelike poses and drawn from life — which is why the birds look so alive, and why the method is uncomfortable. The year 1850 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. Much of what that generation knew of such birds came from specimens and cages; read locality and season both as hearsay.
The Book and the Hand
“Birds of Asia” carries only John Gould'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
Next time you watch a bird: posture first, then where the plumage is deepest, and only then the field guide. The flower of that year is dust, yet its image on paper has outlived every living cousin.
