Grågylling (1924)

Ten ways of seeing

• measured cast yellow-green
• upright 1.31 : 1
• published 1924
• Plate 91

Not a catalogue entry but a way of looking: how to stand, what to notice, how the line was cut — then, halfway, a line of Chinese poetry: how the ancients saw this same flower. After it, the flower's language, its season and homeland, its book; and at the end one line of classical prose — and a pair of eyes to take away.

1. 01

   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. The pose leans right: the upper half carries 10 points further right than the lower — a living thing, not a diagram.

2. 02

   Name and Thing

   No reliable binomial survives, so the printed title must serve. Neither name nor binomial survives: the printed title must do.

3. 03

   Form and Colour

   Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 13.1% of the sheet, foliage 0.1%, the cast yellow-green with a second note of red. 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. Three things fix the habit: leaf arrangement, tepal count, and how the flower is borne.

4. 04

   Composition

   Tall and narrow, the plant rising in one movement with generous margins — the upright format of most floras. (about 1.31 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 15% of the sheet, centred below centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests. Blank paper is not unfinished work: it is where the eye rests.

5. 05

   Line and Colour

   After 1900 photography and colour reproduction ran alongside watercolour: accuracy rose, the cut of the burin disappeared. 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: this is a photomechanical record — match the colours directly, do not imitate the printing grain.

6. 06

   Poetic Resonance

   一年好景君须记，最是橙黄橘绿时。

   —— 宋·苏轼《赠刘景文》

   Remember the best of the year: the time of yellow oranges and green tangerines.

   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.

7. 07

   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. In a flora it is a species first and a symbol second; the order is worth keeping.

8. 08

   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 1924 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.

9. 09

   The Book and the Hand

   “Swedish fruit varieties (Svenska fruktsorter)” was drawn by Henriette Sjöberg and published 1924. This plate is Plate 91. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.

10. 10

    The Written Tradition

    主胸中瘕热逆气，利水谷。久服，去臭下气通神，一名橘皮。生川谷。

    —— 神农本草经·橘柚第一百一十一

    The Book of Songs has a quince given and a jade pendant returned — fruit as ritual gift already in pre-Qin China. You need not parse every word: take the line, and the flower acquires a second face.