![Ciliega Napoletana. [Cerasus Duracina ; Hard-fleshed cherry] (1817-1839) - Pomona Italiana](/upload/nat/pomona-italiana/035-original.webp)
Ciliega Napoletana. [Cerasus Duracina ; Hard-fleshed cherry] (1817-1839)
Ten ways of seeing
- upright 1.40 : 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.
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 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
Flowering trees and shrubs put out branches first; blossoms open before or with the leaves, usually five thin, translucent petals around a cluster of fine stamens.No colour group is recorded. A single plant, laid out with nothing hidden.
Composition
Tall and narrow, the plant rising in one movement with generous margins — the upright format of most floras. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. Blank paper is not unfinished work: it is where the eye rests.
Line and Colour
The first half of the nineteenth century moved from copper to steel to lithography; stipple could render the softest transition. Craft leaves franker evidence than inscriptions. If you mean to copy it: take its skeleton, its margins and the order of its colours; the burin's hatching is the language of copper — suggest it with pencil density, do not imitate it stroke for stroke.
Poetic Resonance
一尺深红胜曲尘，天生旧物不桃新。
—— 唐·温庭筠《新添声杨柳枝词二首》
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
Plum is solitude, peach is marriage, apricot is spring itself, crabapple is a fragile fate; the hibiscus, opening at dawn and falling at dusk, is impermanence. In a flora it is a species first and a symbol second; the order is worth keeping.
Season and Place
Mid spring: plum first, then peach and apricot, cherry last — the season keeps its order. East Asia and temperate Eurasia. Plum, peach and apricot are Chinese in origin, grown for three thousand years. The year 1817 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
“Pomona Italiana” carries only Giorgio Gallesio'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
Next time you stand before a flowering plant, give it three minutes: leaf arrangement, direction of the flower, the darkest patch. The flower of that year is dust, yet its image on paper has outlived every living cousin.
![Cilegia visciolona. [Cerasus visciola ; Cherries] (1817-1839)](/upload/nat/pomona-italiana/034-thumb.webp)
![Ciliegia acquajuola. [Cerasus ; Ciliegio acquaiolo ; Cherries] (1817-1839)](/upload/nat/pomona-italiana/036-thumb.webp)
![Fico verdone. [Ficus carica ; Fig] (1817-1839)](/upload/nat/pomona-italiana/001-thumb.webp)
![Fico gentile. [Ficus carica sativa ; Common Fig] (1817-1839)](/upload/nat/pomona-italiana/002-thumb.webp)
![Fico melograno, o S. Germano. [Ficus carica sativa ; Fig] (1817-1839)](/upload/nat/pomona-italiana/003-thumb.webp)
![Fico Monaco. [Fico della Lunigiana ; Fig Monaco] (1817-1839)](/upload/nat/pomona-italiana/004-thumb.webp)
![Fico paradiseo. [Ficus carica bifera ; Fig] (1817-1839)](/upload/nat/pomona-italiana/005-thumb.webp)
![Fico Pissaluto. [Ficus carica sativa ; Figs] (1817-1839)](/upload/nat/pomona-italiana/006-thumb.webp)
![Fico Portoghese. [Figs from Portugal] (1817-1839)](/upload/nat/pomona-italiana/007-thumb.webp)
![Fico Regina. [Ficus carica sativa ; Fig] (1817-1839)](/upload/nat/pomona-italiana/008-thumb.webp)