Sertum orchidaceum; A wreath of the most beautiful orchidaceous flowers Pl.22 (1838)
蕾丽兰亚族·Cattleya superba|Sertum orchidaceum; A wreath of the most beautiful orchidaceous flowers Pl.22 (1838)
Sertum orchidaceum; A wreath of the most beautiful orchidaceous flowers Pl.22 (1838)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast red
- upright 1.52 : 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.
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. The pose leans right: the upper half carries 9 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. Neither name nor binomial survives: the printed title must do.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 8.6% of the sheet, foliage 6.2%, the cast red 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.No colour group is recorded. Three things fix the habit: leaf arrangement, tepal count, and how the flower is borne.
Composition
The sheet is tall. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 21% of the sheet, centred near the centre; the emptiness 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. There is evidence on the back too: the plate mark pressed into the paper, the slight relief of the pigment, lines worn shallow in a later printing. 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
兰省花时锦帐下，庐山雨夜草庵中。
—— 唐·白居易《庐山草堂夜雨独宿寄牛二李七庾三十二员外》
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 China the orchid is the gentleman who blooms unseen; in Victorian Europe it was luxury and obsession, a single new species worth a fortune. Flower language was added later; the flower knows nothing of it, and that innocence is part of its power.
Season and Place
Varies by genus: temperate terrestrials flower in spring and summer, tropical epiphytes almost year-round. the orchids drawn for European portfolios came largely from the cloud forests of Central America and Southeast Asia. The year 1838 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. The bud and the ripe fruit on one branch tell the season; the name in the title often tells the journey.
The Book and the Hand
“Sertum orchidaceum; A wreath of the most beautiful orchidaceous flowers” carries only John Lindley'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
Sertum orchidaceum; A wreath of the most beautiful orchidaceous flowers Pl.22 (1838) is plate 22, from Sertum orchidaceum; A wreath of the most beautiful orchidaceous flowers, drawn by John Lindley. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: London, J. Ridgway, 1838.
