Allium scorzoneraefolium

Twelve ways of seeing

• measured cast yellow-green
• upright 1.65 : 1
• published 1802
• Plate 39

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

   凡画山水，意在笔先。

   —— 唐·王维《山水论》

   In painting, the intention precedes the brush.

   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 Allium scorzoneraefolium: the first word is the genus it belongs among, the second the epithet that sets it apart. Two words carry a whole provenance. The Chinese name 葱亚科 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.

3. 03

   Form and Colour

   Measured on this plate: flower colour is sparing, 0.6% of the sheet against 0.5% of foliage, the cast tending yellow-green — as with pale or white blooms, outline and tone do the talking. Bulbous plants store the year underground — bulb, corm or tuber — then send up a few thick leaves and a single scape, with six tepals in cup, funnel or star.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 1.65 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 3% of the sheet, centred a little right 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

   The first half of the nineteenth century moved from copper to steel to lithography; stipple could render the softest transition. 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

   Early spring to early summer, genus by genus: tulips and hyacinths first, gladiolus and amaryllis later. The year 1802 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

   Three homelands: the Mediterranean, Central Asia and South Africa. The tulip came from Ottoman gardens and became a Dutch mania; South African bulbs filled European glasshouses after 1800. 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

   “The Liliaceae - Volume Two” was drawn by Pierre-Joseph Redouté and published 1802-1816. This plate is Plate 39. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.

9. 09

   Poetic Resonance

   郁金垂嫩柳，罯画委高笼。

   —— 唐·元稹《春六十韻》

   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

    人无癖不可与交，以其无深情也。

    —— 明·张岱《陶庵梦忆》

    Never make a friend of a man without an obsession: he has no deep feeling.

    Li Bai's 'orchid wine, fragrant with yujin' is often misread as tulips; the Tang yujin was a turmeric-like root used to scent wine — same name, different plant. You need not parse every word: take the line, and the flower acquires a second face.

11. 11

    Symbolism

    The tulip was an imperial emblem in Istanbul and a speculative bubble in Amsterdam; the hyacinth sprang from a boy's blood in Greek myth. What bulbs share is concealment: next year kept underground. Meanings change their tune: the same flower can say opposite things within a century.

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 1802 gave a whole day to a single flower.