Narcissus 4

Twelve ways of seeing

• measured cast amber
• upright 1.36 : 1
• published 1872
• Plate 91

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

   江馆清秋，晨起看竹，烟光日影露气，皆浮动于疏枝密叶之间。

   —— 清·郑板桥《题画竹》

   On an autumn morning at the river lodge I looked at the bamboo: mist, sunlight, dew, all drifting among the sparse and dense leaves.

   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. The pose leans right: the upper half carries 9 points further right than the lower — a living thing, not a diagram.

2. 02

   Name and Thing

   Only the genus Narcissus is given; species-level names came later. 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 8.0% of the sheet, foliage 7.0%, 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'. 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 1.36 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 24% of the sheet, centred a little left of 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.

5. 05

   Line and Colour

   In the later nineteenth century chromolithography took over: colour printed rather than painted, line demoted. 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.

6. 06

   Season

   Late winter into early spring: forced in water in the twelfth month, blooming at the New Year. The year 1872 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 the Mediterranean, reaching China by sea in the late Tang; Zhangzhou in Fujian has grown it since Ming times. The localities on the plate are those of a century ago; plants travel and places change their names.

8. 08

   The Book and the Hand

   “Haarlem's Flora” was drawn by Arentine H. Arendsen and published 1872-1881. This plate is Plate 91. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.

9. 09

   Poetic Resonance

   风流处士，水仙祠下。

   —— 宋·辛弃疾《贺新郎》

   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

    凌波微步，罗袜生尘。

    —— 三国魏·曹植《洛神赋》

    She moves as if treading on waves, dust rising from her silken socks — the line from which the narcissus took its Chinese name, “fairy of the waves”.

    Song poets made it famous — Huang Tingjian wrote that southern gardeners grew it widely; Qing manuals describe the Zhangzhou practice of raising it in sand and water, still used today. Keep the line; it will surface the next time you meet the same plant.

11. 11

    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. This plate leans orange, 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.

12. 12

    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.