![Ii Jahrgang (Liefr. Ii) 4. [Eight Designs For Jewelry, Including Gold Pieces With Green Stones And Pearls.] (1872 - 1873) - Die Perle; Musterblätter Für Juweliere U. Goldarbeiter](/upload/nat/die-perle-musterblatter-fur-juweliere-u-goldarbeiter/037-original.webp)
Ii Jahrgang (Liefr. Ii) 4. [Eight Designs For Jewelry, Including Gold Pieces With Green Stones And Pearls.] (1872 - 1873)
Ten ways of seeing
- upright 1.35 : 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
Flowering trees and shrubs put out branches first; blossoms open before or with the leaves, usually five thin, translucent petals around a cluster of fine stamens.No colour group is recorded. A single plant, laid out with nothing hidden.
Composition
Tall and narrow, the plant rising in one movement with generous margins — the upright format of most floras. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. Old plates set the plant slightly off centre, with unequal margins — that small imbalance is what keeps it alive.
Line and Colour
In the later nineteenth century chromolithography took over: colour printed rather than painted, line demoted. Decide first whether it was printed or painted; only then discuss whether it is beautiful. If you mean to copy it: block in the broad shapes and colours first, detail last; lithographic softness comes from thin washes — two or three pale layers will get you close.
Poetic Resonance
江陵城西二月尾，花不见桃惟见李。
—— 唐·韩愈《李花赠张十一署》
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
Plum is solitude, peach is marriage, apricot is spring itself, crabapple is a fragile fate; the hibiscus, opening at dawn and falling at dusk, is impermanence. Flower language was added later; the flower knows nothing of it, and that innocence is part of its power.
Season and Place
Mid spring: plum first, then peach and apricot, cherry last — the season keeps its order. cherry and crabapple went east to Japan and west to Europe. The year 1872 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
“Die Perle; Musterblätter Für Juweliere U. Goldarbeiter” carries only Martin Gerlach's name. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.
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 1872 gave a whole day to a single flower.
![Ii Jahrgang (Liefr. I) 3. [Seventeen Designs For Jewelry, Including Brooch With Question Mark.] (1872 - 1873)](/upload/nat/die-perle-musterblatter-fur-juweliere-u-goldarbeiter/036-thumb.webp)
![Ii Jahrgang (Liefr. Ii) 5. [Ten Designs For Jewelry, Including Pieces With Diamonds, Gold, And Green Stones.] (1872 - 1873)](/upload/nat/die-perle-musterblatter-fur-juweliere-u-goldarbeiter/038-thumb.webp)
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