Hyacinthus stellaris germanicus ; hyacin. stellaris germanicus ; hyacinthus stellaris cynericeus major ; hyacintus peruvanus (1624)
伞花虎眼万年青
Hyacinthus stellaris germanicus ; hyacin. stellaris germanicus ; hyacinthus stellaris cynericeus major ; hyacintus peruvanus (1624)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast amber
- upright 1.59 : 1
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.
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. The pose leans left: the upper half carries 9 points further left than the lower — a living thing, not a diagram.
Name and Thing
Only the genus Hyacinthus is given; species-level names came later. The Chinese name 伞花虎眼万年青 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 7.9% of the sheet, foliage 3.8%, the cast amber with a second note of red. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Bulbous plants store the year underground — bulb, corm or tuber — then send up a few thick leaves and a single scape, with six tepals in cup, funnel or star.No colour group is recorded. 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 18% 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. 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
郁金裳浥蔷薇露，知是仙人萼绿华。
—— 宋·方岳《巖桂花》
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 tulip was an imperial emblem in Istanbul and a speculative bubble in Amsterdam; the hyacinth sprang from a boy's blood in Greek myth. What bulbs share is concealment: next year kept underground. In a flora it is a species first and a symbol second; the order is worth keeping.
Season and Place
Early spring to early summer, genus by genus: tulips and hyacinths first, gladiolus and amaryllis later. South African bulbs filled European glasshouses after 1800. The year 1624 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
“Collection of flowers and insects” carries only Daniel Rabel'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 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 1624 gave a whole day to a single flower.
About this plate
Hyacinthus stellaris germanicus ; hyacin. stellaris germanicus ; hyacinthus stellaris cynericeus major ; hyacintus peruvanus (1624) is plate 70, from Collection of flowers and insects, drawn by Daniel Rabel. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: Paris, 1624.
