Iris flavissima

Twelve ways of seeing

• measured cast yellow-green
• upright 1.78 : 1
• published 1781
• Plate 304

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

   论画以形似，见与儿童邻。

   —— 宋·苏轼《书鄢陵王主簿所画折枝》

   To judge painting by likeness alone is the view of a child.

   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.

2. 02

   Name and Thing

   The binomial is Iris flavissima: the first word is the genus it belongs among, the second the epithet that sets it apart. The genus name Iris: Iris is the Greek goddess of the rainbow, for the many hues of the flowers. The Chinese name 矮小鸢尾 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.

3. 03

   Form and Colour

   Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 3.9% of the sheet, foliage 0.0%, 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. 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 1.78 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 4% of the sheet, centred above centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests. Cover the margins with your thumb and the plate suffocates; uncover them and the flower breathes again.

5. 05

   Line and Colour

   Eighteenth-century plates are mostly copper engraving: hatched lines for shadow, then hand-colouring by another hand. Take a loupe to three places: petal edge, leaf vein, caption. An unbroken line means engraving; colour crossing the outline means a hand.

6. 06

   Season

   Late spring to early summer, peaking in April and May, before the summer rains. The year 1781 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. The best time to read such a plate is its flowering season: three minutes under the tree explains what no text can.

7. 07

   Provenance

   Temperate north. In China iris and sweet flag belong to the Dragon Boat festival; in Europe Iris germanica gave the perfume trade its orris root. The volume was made in 1781-1793, when most of this knowledge came from living plants under glass.

8. 08

   The Book and the Hand

   “Icones Plantarum Rariorum” was drawn by Nikolaus Joseph Freiherr von Jacquin and published 1781-1793. This plate is Plate 304. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.

9. 09

   Poetic Resonance

   因寻菖蒲水，渐入桃花谷。

   —— 唐·白居易《和夢遊春詩一百韻》

   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.

10. 10

    The Written Tradition

    写气图貌，既随物以宛转；属采附声，亦与心而徘徊。

    —— 南朝梁·刘勰《文心雕龙·物色》

    In tracing the spirit and drawing the shape one follows the object; in choosing colour and sound one lingers with the heart.

    The Bencao Gangmu lists iris and sweet flag among herbs; the Jingchu seasonal records describe hanging mugwort and flag at the door at midsummer — a custom unbroken for a thousand years. The difference is not of quality but of question: Europe asks what it is, China asks whom it resembles.

11. 11

    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.

12. 12

    What to Take Away

    Appreciation is not knowledge but habit — one more look each time. The flower of that year is dust, yet its image on paper has outlived every living cousin.