Cypripedium lemoinierianum.

Twelve ways of seeing

• measured cast yellow-green
• upright 1.39 : 1
• published 1888
• Plate 62

Not a catalogue entry but a way of looking: how to stand, what to notice, how the line was cut, when it flowers, where it came from, who made it — and then the poems and the classics that taught China to see the same flower. Read the twelve in order and the plate opens.

1. 01

   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.

   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 orange is deepest: the whole tonal order is measured from that patch.

2. 02

   Name and Thing

   The binomial is Cypripedium lemoinierianum: the first word is the genus it belongs among, the second the epithet that sets it apart. The genus name Cypripedium: Cypripedium means 'slipper of Cypris' — Venus's slipper. The Chinese name 杓兰属 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.

3. 03

   Form and Colour

   Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 28.7% of the sheet, foliage 5.6%, the cast yellow-green with a second note of amber. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Orchids carry pseudobulbs or fleshy roots; six tepals, one modified into a lip that serves as a landing stage, and a column uniting stamens and pistil — a structure unique to the family. Filed under orange — an amber orange, 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 1.39 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant takes about 35% of the sheet, centred near the centre — the easy measure most florists kept to. 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.

6. 06

   Season

   Varies by genus: temperate terrestrials flower in spring and summer, tropical epiphytes almost year-round. The year 1888 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. Note the season. Phenology is the most practical tool of appreciation.

7. 07

   Provenance

   Worldwide, richest on tropical mountains. Chinese cymbidiums come from the hills of the south; the orchids drawn for European portfolios came largely from the cloud forests of Central America and Southeast Asia. The volume was made in 1888-1894, when most of this knowledge came from living plants under glass.

8. 08

   The Book and the Hand

   “Reichenbachia. Orchids” was drawn by Frederick Sander and published 1888-1894. This plate is Plate 62. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.

9. 09

   Poetic Resonance

   北风受节鴈南翔，崇兰委质时菊芳。

   —— 唐·王勃《杂曲歌辞 秋夜长》

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

10. 10

    The Written Tradition

    芝兰生于深林，不以无人而不芳；君子修道立德，不为穷困而改节。

    —— 《孔子家语·在厄》

    The orchid grows deep in the forest and is fragrant though no one comes; so the gentleman cultivates virtue and does not alter it in hardship.

    Confucius, finding an orchid flowering alone in a valley, is said to have composed the 'Lament for the Orchid'; in the Li Sao, orchids are worn as a girdle of virtue. Keep the line; it will surface the next time you meet the same plant.

11. 11

    Symbolism

    In China the orchid is the gentleman who blooms unseen; in Victorian Europe it was luxury and obsession, a single new species worth a fortune. This plate leans orange, which in flower language adds one more degree of feeling. In a flora it is a species first and a symbol second; the order is worth keeping.

12. 12

    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.