Iris major, latifolia, Romana caerulea – Giglio Pavonazzo – Flambe. (Tall bearded Iris (1772-1793)
Ten ways of seeing
- upright 1.49 : 1
First Look
夫象物必在于形似，形似须全其骨气。
—— 唐·张彦远《历代名画记》
Likeness is the threshold; bone-and-breath is the point.
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
The binomial is Iris major: the first word is the genus it belongs among, the second the epithet that sets it apart. Here the epithet major means “larger” — the name records the feature the namer noticed first. No established Chinese name exists, so it is cited by its binomial alone.
Form and Colour
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. Read the outline, then the colour layers, then the brush.
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
Eighteenth-century plates are mostly copper engraving: hatched lines for shadow, then hand-colouring by another hand. Decide first whether it was printed or painted; only then discuss whether it is beautiful. 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
蓝田日暖玉生烟。
—— 唐·李商隐《锦瑟》
In warm sun over Lantian, the jade gives off smoke.
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. In a flora it is a species first and a symbol second; the order is worth keeping.
Season and Place
Late spring to early summer, peaking in April and May, before the summer rains. Temperate north. In China iris and sweet flag belong to the Dragon Boat festival. The year 1772 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
“Hortus Romanus juxta systema Tournefortianum” carries only Giorgio Bonelli's name. From drawing to plate the sheet passed through several hands — the engraver aimed at accuracy, the colourist at speed, and between them lies each plate's unevenness.
What to Take Away
Carry three rules away: whole before detail; line before colour; picture before book. The flower of that year is dust, yet its image on paper has outlived every living cousin.
