Collectanea botanica Pl.36
Collectanea botanica Pl.36
Collectanea botanica Pl.36
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast amber
- upright 1.33 : 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 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
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 2.9% of the sheet, foliage 0.2%, the cast amber with a second note of yellow-green. No other plate shares exactly this measure. A botanical plate: one plant lifted from field or glasshouse and set at the centre of the sheet, root, stem, leaf, flower and fruit in turn, made legible, citable, transmissible.No colour group is recorded. Three things fix the habit: leaf arrangement, tepal count, and how the flower is borne.
Composition
The sheet is tall. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 23% of the sheet, centred near the centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests.
Line and Colour
The first half of the nineteenth century moved from copper to steel to lithography; stipple could render the softest transition. 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: 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
朝饮木兰之坠露兮，夕餐秋菊之落英。
—— 战国·屈原《离骚》
At dawn I drink the dew fallen from magnolia; at dusk I dine on the fallen petals of autumn chrysanthemum.
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the corolla becomes its resting point.
Symbolism
The symbolism of such a plate lies not in flower lore but in record: the belief that a plant deserves to be drawn accurately — the plainest ethic of the scientific age. Flower language was added later; the flower knows nothing of it, and that innocence is part of its power.
Season and Place
the rest of the year it is only a mass of leaves. Various: local hillside or a plant brought from overseas. The nineteenth-century botanic garden and glasshouse were their first address away from home. The year 1821 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
“Collectanea botanica” carries only John Lindley'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
If you keep one line, keep Guo Xi's: from afar its momentum, up close its texture. A flora exists to be consulted; look long enough and you forget to consult — someone in 1821 gave a whole day to a single flower.
About this plate
Collectanea botanica Pl.36 is plate 36, from Collectanea botanica, drawn by John Lindley. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: London, Richard and Arthur Taylor, 1821-1826.
