Iris dalmatica ; iris glorieux ; iris ; iris bulbosa latifolia lusitanica. I. Clussi (1624)
天门冬目
Iris dalmatica ; iris glorieux ; iris ; iris bulbosa latifolia lusitanica. I. Clussi (1624)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast amber
- upright 1.62 : 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 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
The binomial is Iris dalmatica: the first word is the genus it belongs among, the second the epithet that sets it apart. The genus name Iris: Iris is the Greek goddess of the rainbow, for the many hues of the flowers. The Chinese name 天门冬目 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 9.7% of the sheet, foliage 3.8%, the cast amber with a second note of red. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Irises carry rhizomes or bulbs, sword-shaped leaves in two ranks, and six tepals — three falls drooping, often bearded or speckled, three standards erect.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 20% 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. Take a loupe to three places: petal edge, leaf vein, caption. An unbroken line means engraving; colour crossing the outline means a hand. 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
知道君家当瀑布，菖蒲潭在草堂前。
—— 唐·王建《送顧非熊秀才歸丹陽》
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
In China sweet flag hung at the door wards off evil at midsummer; in Europe the iris is the messenger, since Iris was the rainbow goddess who carried divine words. Flower language was added later; the flower knows nothing of it, and that innocence is part of its power.
Season and Place
Late spring to early summer, peaking in April and May, before the summer rains. in Europe Iris germanica gave the perfume trade its orris root. 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
Appreciation is not knowledge but habit — one more look each time. Two centuries on, the plant may still flower in some garden; the one on this sheet stopped in the season of 1624.
About this plate
Iris dalmatica ; iris glorieux ; iris ; iris bulbosa latifolia lusitanica. I. Clussi (1624) is plate 91, 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.
