Mon Jardin a Ceylan Pl.102 (1896)

Ten ways of seeing

• measured cast yellow-green
• upright 1.37 : 1
• published 1896
• Plate 102

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

   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 where the yellow is deepest: the whole tonal order is measured from that patch. The pose leans left: the upper half carries 24 points further left than the lower — a living thing, not a diagram.

2. 02

   Name and Thing

   No reliable binomial survives, so the printed title must serve. Neither name nor binomial survives: the printed title must do.

3. 03

   Form and Colour

   Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 7.2% of the sheet, foliage 34.2%, the cast yellow-green with a second note of amber. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Tropical plants defy temperate habits: heavy, saturated flowers with strong scent, leathery or dissected leaves, stems that climb, swell, or reduce to spines. Filed under yellow — a honey-yellow, built in washes from a pale ground. 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 1.37 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant fills 42% of the sheet, centred near the centre — the herbarium way, drawn to be read whole. Blank paper is not unfinished work: it is where the eye rests.

5. 05

   Line and Colour

   In the later nineteenth century chromolithography took over: colour printed rather than painted, line demoted. Decide first whether it was printed or painted; only then discuss whether it is beautiful. 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

   海客谈瀛洲，烟涛微茫信难求。

   —— 唐·李白《梦游天姥吟留别》

   Seafarers talk of Yingzhou, lost in mist and waves, truly hard to find.

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

7. 07

   Symbolism

   In China these plants carry no classical symbolism; their meaning is newness — new worlds, new species, new trade routes. They show natural history's expanding edge. This plate leans yellow, 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.

8. 08

   Season and Place

   flowering follows the first rains, so a month on the plate often means 'after the rain'. Central and South America, Southeast Asia, India, Ceylon. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century artists either sailed with the ships or drew from living specimens under glass. The year 1896 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.

9. 09

   The Book and the Hand

   “Mon Jardin a Ceylan” was drawn by George De Alwis and published 1896. This plate is Plate 102. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.

10. 10

    The Written Tradition

    投我以木瓜，报之以琼琚。匪报也，永以为好也。

    —— 《诗经·卫风·木瓜》

    You toss me a quince, I return a jade pendant — not as payment, but so that we may be friends for ever.

    Ji Han's fourth-century Records of the Plants of the South is China's earliest regional flora; Europe's counterpart was the exotic flora brought home by voyages — both by-products of empire and trade. You need not parse every word: take the line, and the flower acquires a second face.