Bunchberry (fruit) (Cornus canadensis) (1925)
草茱萸
Bunchberry (fruit) (Cornus canadensis) (1925)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast yellow-green
- slightly upright 1.29 : 1
First Look
真山水之川谷，远望之以取其势，近看之以取其质。
—— 宋·郭熙《林泉高致·山水训》
Mountains and valleys: from afar take their momentum, up close take their texture — the two distances from which any picture is read.
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.
Name and Thing
No reliable binomial survives, so the printed title must serve. The Chinese name 草茱萸 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 4.1% of the sheet, foliage 1.1%, the cast yellow-green 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. Take a loupe to three places: petal edge, leaf vein, caption. An unbroken line means engraving; colour crossing the outline means a hand. If you mean to copy it: this is a photomechanical record — match the colours directly, do not imitate the printing grain.
Poetic Resonance
楚江寒食橘花时，野渡临风驻彩旗。
—— 唐·杜牧《江上偶见绝句》
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. Flower language was added later; the flower knows nothing of it, and that innocence is part of its power.
Season and Place
Late summer into autumn, variety by variety. 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. See this kind of plate in the flowering season if you can: once you have met the living flower, you stop reading only colour.
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
Next time you stand before a flowering plant, give it three minutes: leaf arrangement, direction of the flower, the darkest patch. A flora exists to be consulted; look long enough and you forget to consult — someone in 1925 gave a whole day to a single flower.
About this plate
Bunchberry (fruit) (Cornus canadensis) (1925) is plate 272, 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.
