Crowpoison (Chrosperma muscaetoxicum) (1925)
Crowpoison (Chrosperma muscaetoxicum) (1925)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast yellow-green
- slightly upright 1.28 : 1
First Look
六法者何？一、气韵生动是也；二、骨法用笔是也；三、应物象形是也；四、随类赋彩是也；五、经营位置是也；六、传移模写是也。
—— 南齐·谢赫《古画品录》
The six laws: spirit resonance alive; bone-method in the brush; matching form; colour by kind; planning the placing; copying the masters.
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. Neither name nor binomial survives: the printed title must do.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour is sparing, 0.6% of the sheet against 3.6% of foliage, the cast tending yellow-green — as with pale or white blooms, outline and tone do the talking. Wildflowers are rarely tidy: small blooms, slender stems, leaves imperfect and often chewed. That untidiness is exactly what records wind, light and soil.No colour group is recorded. Read the outline, then the colour layers, then the brush.
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 below 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
处处汀洲有芳草，王孙讵肯念归期。
—— 唐·皇甫冉《江草歌送盧判官》
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.
Symbolism
In Chinese verse wildflowers bloom unseen, owing nothing to praise; in the West they mark a place — one species, one landscape's character. Flower language was added later; the flower knows nothing of it, and that innocence is part of its power.
Season and Place
in the northeastern United States, April to August — each species for two or three weeks, so a wildflower book is arranged by month. they resent transplanting and will not mass in a border — the difference between a wildflower and a garden flower. 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. From drawing to plate the sheet passed through several hands — the engraver aimed at accuracy, the colourist at speed, and between them lies each plate's unevenness.
What to Take Away
If you keep one line, keep Guo Xi's: from afar its momentum, up close its texture. 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
Crowpoison (Chrosperma muscaetoxicum) (1925) is plate 147, 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.
