Narcissus silvestris multiplex ; narcissus iuncifolius (1624)
水仙属
Narcissus silvestris multiplex ; narcissus iuncifolius (1624)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast amber
- upright 1.58 : 1
First Look
搜尽奇峰打草稿。
—— 清·石涛《苦瓜和尚画语录》
Exhaust the strange peaks, and then make the sketch.
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 9.5% of the sheet, foliage 1.3%, 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 12% 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. Craft leaves franker evidence than inscriptions. 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
含香体素欲倾城，山矾是弟梅是兄。
—— 宋·黄庭坚《王充道送水仙花五十枝》
Fragrant, white-bodied, all but city-toppling; the snowbell is its younger brother, the plum its elder.
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. Meanings change their tune: the same flower can say opposite things within a century.
Season and Place
Late winter into early spring: forced in water in the twelfth month, blooming at the New Year. Native to the Mediterranean, reaching China by sea in the late Tang. The year 1624 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. Read the locality and the flowering season both with a discount: one is hearsay, the other a ten-day peak.
The Book and the Hand
“Collection of flowers and insects” carries only Daniel Rabel's name. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.
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 silvestris multiplex ; narcissus iuncifolius (1624) is plate 58, 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.
