Iris de Florence (1820)
Lambert aine|IRIS DE FL.ORENCE ravé par Lambert aine
Iris de Florence (1820)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast yellow-green
- upright 1.67 : 1
- published 1820
- Plate 44
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. The pose leans right: the upper half carries 8 points further right than the lower — a living thing, not a diagram.
Name and Thing
Only the genus Iris is given; species-level names came later. No established Chinese name exists, so it is cited by its binomial alone.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 4.9% of the sheet, foliage 0.1%, the cast yellow-green with a second note of amber. 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
Tall and narrow, the plant rising in one movement with generous margins — the upright format of most floras. (about 1.67 : 1) 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. Old plates set the plant slightly off centre, with unequal margins — that small imbalance is what keeps it alive.
Line and Colour
The first half of the nineteenth century moved from copper to steel to lithography; stipple could render the softest transition. 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
手把菖蒲对佳节，兴来呼酒劝同僚。
—— 宋·王十朋《五月四日與同僚南樓觀競渡因成小詩四首明日同行可元章登樓又成五首 其二》
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 1820 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. The bud and the ripe fruit on one branch tell the season; the name in the title often tells the journey.
The Book and the Hand
“Studies of Flowers and Fruits” was drawn by Henriette Antoinette Vincent and published 1820. This plate is Plate 44. 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
Iris de Florence (1820) is plate 44, from Studies of Flowers and Fruits, drawn by Henriette Antoinette Vincent. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: Paris, Chez Bance aîné, 1820.
