The Lobster And His Mother (1857)
Ten ways of seeing
- slightly upright 1.22 : 1
First Look
江馆清秋，晨起看竹，烟光日影露气，皆浮动于疏枝密叶之间。
—— 清·郑板桥《题画竹》
On an autumn morning at the river lodge I looked at the bamboo: mist, sunlight, dew, all drifting among the sparse and dense leaves.
Slightly taller than wide; the eye lands on the bird's head, a little above centre. 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
Insect plates show the host plant and all four stages at once — egg, larva, pupa, adult — with wing venation, scales and antennal segments accounted for: the most technical branch of natural-history art.No colour group is recorded. Read the outline, then the colour layers, then the brush.
Composition
Slightly taller than wide, the bird set a little above centre, the eye landing at head and bill. 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
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. If you mean to copy it: block in the broad shapes and colours first, detail last; lithographic softness comes from thin washes — two or three pale layers will get you close.
Poetic Resonance
遗令奉君王，嚬蛾强一妆。
—— 唐·刘方平《铜雀妓》
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the bird itself becomes its resting point.
Symbolism
In China the butterfly is dream and lovers, the cicada purity, the firefly a lamp for reading; in Europe the insect began as specimen before it became symbol. Meanings change their tune: the same flower can say opposite things within a century.
Season and Place
Set by life stage: butterflies in spring and summer, moths into autumn, beetles from May to July. Four stages on one sheet span a whole year. Merian's Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (1705) first showed insect stages with their host plants — the result of raising caterpillars in the Surinam forest with her daughters. The year 1857 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
“The fables of Æsop and others, translated into human nature” carries only Charles Henry Bennett's name. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.
What to Take Away
Next time you watch a bird: posture first, then where the plumage is deepest, and only then the field guide. The flower of that year is dust, yet its image on paper has outlived every living cousin.
