Signe Tillisch (1924)
Svenska Fruktsorter II uppl. PI. 46 Signe Tillisch. Mäl. af. Henriette Sjöberé Haeg
Signe Tillisch (1924)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast yellow-green
- slightly upright 1.28 : 1
First Look
凡画山水，意在笔先。
—— 唐·王维《山水论》
In painting, the intention precedes the brush.
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 where the yellow is deepest: the whole tonal order is measured from that patch. The pose leans right: the upper half carries 12 points further right than the lower — a living thing, not a diagram.
Name and Thing
The binomial is Signe tillisch: the first word is the genus it belongs among, the second the epithet that sets it apart. Two words carry a whole provenance. No established Chinese name exists, so it is cited by its binomial alone.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 16.3% of the sheet, foliage 0.0%, the cast yellow-green with a second note of amber. No other plate shares exactly this measure. A bulb of overlapping fleshy scales gives the lily its Chinese name, 'hundred-fold'; six tepals reflex as the flower opens, around six stamens with long, T-shaped anthers. Filed under yellow — a honey-yellow, built in washes from a pale ground. Three things fix the habit: leaf arrangement, tepal count, and how the flower is borne.
Composition
The sheet is slightly tall. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 19% of the sheet, centred near the 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
更乞两丛香百合，老翁七十尚童心。
—— 宋·陆游《窗前作小土山蓻兰及玉簪最后得香百合并种之戏作》
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the yellow the corolla becomes its resting point.
Symbolism
In the West the white lily is Marian purity, held by the angel of the Annunciation; in China the name sounds like 'a hundred years in harmony', a wedding wish. This plate leans yellow, which in flower language adds one more degree of feeling. Meanings change their tune: the same flower can say opposite things within a century.
Season and Place
Early to high summer, June and July. Temperate north — China, Japan, Europe. Long used in Chinese medicine, lilies were hunted in East Asia by nineteenth-century collectors and transformed European gardens. 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.
The Book and the Hand
“Swedish fruit varieties (Svenska fruktsorter)” carries only Henriette Sjöberg's name. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.
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.
About this plate
Signe Tillisch (1924) is plate 48, from Swedish fruit varieties (Svenska fruktsorter), drawn by Henriette Sjöberg. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: Stockholm, P. A. Norstedt & Söners Förlag, 1924.
