Miltonia cuneata

Ten ways of seeing

• measured cast yellow-green
• upright 1.50 : 1
• published 1854
• Plate 68

Not a catalogue entry but a way of looking: how to stand, what to notice, how the line was cut — then, halfway, a line of Chinese poetry: how the ancients saw this same flower. After it, the flower's language, its season and homeland, its book; and at the end one line of classical prose — and a pair of eyes to take away.

1. 01

   First Look

   竖划三寸，当千仞之高；横墨数尺，体百里之迥。

   —— 南朝宋·宗炳《画山水序》

   A vertical stroke of three inches stands for a cliff of a thousand fathoms; a few feet of ink holds a hundred li.

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

2. 02

   Name and Thing

   The binomial is Miltonia cuneata: 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 锲唇丽堇兰 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.

3. 03

   Form and Colour

   Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 22.4% of the sheet, foliage 20.7%, the cast yellow-green with a second note of red. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Orchids carry pseudobulbs or fleshy roots; six tepals, one modified into a lip that serves as a landing stage, and a column uniting stamens and pistil — a structure unique to the family. Filed under green — a moss green, a colour that comes mostly from leaf and stem. 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 1.50 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant fills 45% of the sheet, centred near the centre — the herbarium way, drawn to be read whole. Cover the margins with your thumb and the plate suffocates; uncover them and the flower breathes again.

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. If you mean to copy it: block in the broad shapes and colours first, detail last; lithographic softness comes from thin washes — two or three pale layers will get you close.

6. 06

   Poetic Resonance

   汉书扬雄传反离骚云：“灵修既信椒、兰之唼佞兮。

   —— 《潜夫论·明暗第六》

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

7. 07

   Symbolism

   In China the orchid is the gentleman who blooms unseen; in Victorian Europe it was luxury and obsession, a single new species worth a fortune. Meanings change their tune: the same flower can say opposite things within a century.

8. 08

   Season and Place

   Varies by genus: temperate terrestrials flower in spring and summer, tropical epiphytes almost year-round. Worldwide, richest on tropical mountains. Chinese cymbidiums come from the hills of the south. The year 1854 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. The volume was made in 1854-1896, when most of this knowledge came from living plants under glass.

9. 09

   The Book and the Hand

   “L'Illustration horticole” was drawn by Charles Antoine Lemaire and published 1854-1896. This plate is Plate 68. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.

10. 10

    The Written Tradition

    释名（闲）、木香、香水兰、女兰、香草、燕尾香、大泽兰、兰泽草、煎泽草、省头草、都梁香、孩儿菊、千金草。气味（叶）辛、平、无毒。

    —— 本草纲目·兰草第九十三

    Confucius, finding an orchid flowering alone in a valley, is said to have composed the 'Lament for the Orchid'; in the Li Sao, orchids are worn as a girdle of virtue. You need not parse every word: take the line, and the flower acquires a second face.