Narcissus omnium maximus ; narcissus albus medio croceus amplo calice ; narcissus albus medio luteus (1624)
水仙属
Narcissus omnium maximus ; narcissus albus medio croceus amplo calice ; narcissus albus medio luteus (1624)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast amber
- upright 1.61 : 1
First Look
六法者何？一、气韵生动是也；二、骨法用笔是也；三、应物象形是也；四、随类赋彩是也；五、经营位置是也；六、传移模写是也。
—— 南齐·谢赫《古画品录》
The six laws: spirit resonance alive; bone-method in the brush; matching form; colour by kind; planning the placing; copying the masters.
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
Only the genus Narcissus is given; species-level names came later. The Chinese name 水仙属 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 9.8% of the sheet, foliage 6.2%, the cast amber with a second note of yellow-green. No other plate shares exactly this measure. A layered bulb, upright strap leaves, six white tepals and a small golden cup — the Chinese name is 'silver terrace with a golden cup'.No colour group is recorded. Read the outline, then the colour layers, then the brush.
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. 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
水仙欲上鲤鱼去，一夜芙蓉红泪多。
—— 唐·李商隐《板桥晓别》
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 it is the New Year's offering — clear, fragrant, a little otherworldly; in Europe, because of Narcissus, it means self-love and the gaze turned inward. In a flora it is a species first and a symbol second; the order is worth keeping.
Season and Place
Late winter into early spring: forced in water in the twelfth month, blooming at the New Year. Zhangzhou in Fujian has grown it since Ming times. 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
If you keep one line, keep Guo Xi's: from afar its momentum, up close its texture. The flower of that year is dust, yet its image on paper has outlived every living cousin.
About this plate
Narcissus omnium maximus ; narcissus albus medio croceus amplo calice ; narcissus albus medio luteus (1624) is plate 50, 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.
