Hibiscus Cameroni-fulgens

Ten ways of seeing

• measured cast red
• upright 1.58 : 1
• published 1829
• Plate 465

Not a catalogue entry but a way of looking: how to stand, what to notice, how the line was cut — then, halfway, a line of Chinese poetry: how the ancients saw this same flower. After it, the flower's language, its season and homeland, its book; and at the end one line of classical prose — and a pair of eyes to take away.

1. 01

   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 where the red is deepest: the whole tonal order is measured from that patch.

2. 02

   Name and Thing

   The binomial is Hibiscus cameroni-fulgens: the first word is the genus it belongs among, the second the epithet that sets it apart. The genus name Hibiscus: Hibiscus was the Greek name for a mallow. No established Chinese name exists, so it is cited by its binomial alone.

3. 03

   Form and Colour

   Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 25.8% of the sheet, foliage 8.1%, the cast red. No other plate shares exactly this measure. 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. Filed under red — a red close to carmine, built in washes from a pale ground. Read the outline, then the colour layers, then the brush.

4. 04

   Composition

   Tall and narrow, the plant rising in one movement with generous margins — the upright format of most floras. (about 1.58 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant fills 56% of the sheet, centred near the centre — the herbarium way, drawn to be read whole. Blank paper is not unfinished work: it is where the eye rests.

5. 05

   Line and Colour

   The first half of the nineteenth century moved from copper to steel to lithography; stipple could render the softest transition. 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.

6. 06

   Poetic Resonance

   疏影横斜水清浅，暗香浮动月黄昏。

   —— 宋·林逋《山园小梅》

   Sparse shadows slant across the shallow water; hidden fragrance drifts in the dusk of the moon.

   The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the red the corolla becomes its resting point.

7. 07

   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. This plate leans red, which in flower language adds one more degree of feeling. Flower language was added later; the flower knows nothing of it, and that innocence is part of its power.

8. 08

   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 1829 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. The volume was made in 1829-1847, when most of this knowledge came from living plants under glass.

9. 09

   The Book and the Hand

   “Edwards' Botanical Register” was drawn by Sydenham Edwards, John Lindley and published 1829-1847. This plate is Plate 465. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.

10. 10

    The Written Tradition

    《名医》曰：生晋山。案《说文》云：杏，果也。《管子·地员篇》云：五沃之土，其木宜杏，高诱注《淮南子》云：杏有窍在中。

    —— 神农本草经·杏核仁第三百五十四

    Lin Bu of Hangzhou famously took the plum as his wife and the crane as his son; the Book of Songs already used peach blossom to open a wedding song. You need not parse every word: take the line, and the flower acquires a second face.