Chrysanthemum indicum

Twelve ways of seeing

• measured cast red
• upright 1.54 : 1
• published 1818
• Plate 11

Not a catalogue entry but a way of looking: how to stand, what to notice, how the line was cut, when it flowers, where it came from, who made it — and then the poems and the classics that taught China to see the same flower. Read the twelve in order and the plate opens.

1. 01

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

2. 02

   Name and Thing

   The binomial is Chrysanthemum indicum: the first word is the genus it belongs among, the second the epithet that sets it apart. The genus name Chrysanthemum: Chrysanthemum means 'golden flower' in Greek. The Chinese name 菊花 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.

3. 03

   Form and Colour

   Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 9.6% of the sheet, foliage 5.3%, the cast red with a second note of amber. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Chrysanthemums are herbaceous with deeply lobed, downy leaves. Each 'flower' is a head — ray florets around the rim, disc florets in the centre, hundreds of small flowers in one. Filed under orange — an amber orange, built in washes from a pale ground. A single plant, laid out with nothing hidden.

4. 04

   Composition

   Tall and narrow, the plant rising in one movement with generous margins — the upright format of most floras. (about 1.54 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 17% of the sheet, centred a little right of centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests. 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. Decide first whether it was printed or painted; only then discuss whether it is beautiful.

6. 06

   Season

   Deep autumn, around the Double Ninth in the ninth month — after the first frost, when everything else is gone. The year 1818 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. Note the season. Phenology is the most practical tool of appreciation.

7. 07

   Provenance

   Native to China, adopted in Japan as the imperial crest, carried to Europe by the Dutch in the seventeenth century and remade by Victorian breeders. The volume was made in 1818-1824, when most of this knowledge came from living plants under glass.

8. 08

   The Book and the Hand

   “Flora Italiana” was drawn by Gaetano Savi and published 1818-1824. This plate is Plate 11. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.

9. 09

   Poetic Resonance

   征君已去独松菊，哀壑无光留户庭。

   —— 唐·杜甫《覃山人隐居》

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

10. 10

    The Written Tradition

    菊春生夏茂，秋花冬实，备受四气，饱经露霜，叶枯不落，花槁不零。

    —— 明·李时珍《本草纲目·草部》

    The chrysanthemum sprouts in spring, thrives in summer, flowers in autumn, seeds in winter; it takes all four seasons and all the frost, and its leaves wither without falling.

    The Bencao Gangmu notes that the shoot may be eaten, the leaf steeped, the flower taken as food, the root used as medicine, the petals stuffed into a pillow, the whole brewed into wine. Keep the line; it will surface the next time you meet the same plant.

11. 11

    Symbolism

    in Japan, imperial authority; in Europe, the last warmth of the year. This plate leans orange, which in flower language adds one more degree of feeling. In a flora it is a species first and a symbol second; the order is worth keeping.

12. 12

    What to Take Away

    Carry three rules away: whole before detail; line before colour; picture before book. A flora exists to be consulted; look long enough and you forget to consult — someone in 1818 gave a whole day to a single flower.