Bearberry (fruit) (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) (1925)
熊果
Bearberry (fruit) (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) (1925)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast red
- slightly upright 1.28 : 1
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.
Slightly taller than wide; the eye lands above centre. 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. The pose leans right: the upper half carries 13 points further right than the lower — a living thing, not a diagram.
Name and Thing
No reliable binomial survives, so the printed title must serve. The Chinese name 熊果 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 2.2% of the sheet, foliage 1.8%, the cast red with a second note of amber. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Fruit plates pair the whole fruit with a section: the outline identifies the variety, the cut reveals skin thickness, core size and seed arrangement — the evidence of registration.No colour group is recorded. A single plant, laid out with nothing hidden.
Composition
The sheet is slightly tall. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 5% of the sheet, centred near the centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests.
Line and Colour
After 1900 photography and colour reproduction ran alongside watercolour: accuracy rose, the cut of the burin disappeared. Decide first whether it was printed or painted; only then discuss whether it is beautiful. If you mean to copy it: this is a photomechanical record — match the colours directly, do not imitate the printing grain.
Poetic Resonance
一年好景君须记，最是橙黄橘绿时。
—— 宋·苏轼《赠刘景文》
Remember the best of the year: the time of yellow oranges and green tangerines.
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the fruit becomes its resting point.
Symbolism
In China the pomegranate means many sons, the peach long life, the orange good fortune; in Europe the apple is temptation and knowledge, the grape abundance and sacrifice. Meanings change their tune: the same flower can say opposite things within a century.
Season and Place
a fruit portfolio spans the whole harvest. Temperate fruits came mostly from Eurasia, later from the Americas. Nineteenth-century nurseries printed varietal albums for trade and exhibition: every fruit on the page was a saleable claim. The year 1925 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
“North American wild flowers” carries only Mary Vaux Walcott's name. A plate is collective work: drawer, engraver and colourist were different hands, and the unnamed ones decided how good it looks.
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.
About this plate
Bearberry (fruit) (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) (1925) is plate 112, from North American wild flowers, drawn by Mary Vaux Walcott. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: Washington, D.C., The Smithsonian Institution, 1925.
