Aricus Misseltoe (1856)

Ten ways of seeing

• measured cast amber
• upright 1.36 : 1
• published 1856
• 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

   竖划三寸，当千仞之高；横墨数尺，体百里之迥。

   —— 南朝宋·宗炳《画山水序》

   A vertical stroke of three inches stands for a cliff of a thousand fathoms; a few feet of ink holds a hundred li.

   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 Aricus misseltoe: 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.

3. 03

   Form and Colour

   Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 3.6% of the sheet, foliage 0.0%, the cast amber. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Wildflowers are rarely tidy: small blooms, slender stems, leaves imperfect and often chewed. That untidiness is exactly what records wind, light and soil. 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 1.36 : 1) No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 7% of the sheet, centred above centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests. Old plates set the plant slightly off centre, with unequal margins — that small imbalance is what keeps it alive.

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. 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.

6. 06

   Poetic Resonance

   君报还期在早春，桥边日日看芳草。

   —— 唐·皇甫冉《送包佶賦得天津橋》

   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.

7. 07

   Symbolism

   In Chinese verse wildflowers bloom unseen, owing nothing to praise; in the West they mark a place — one species, one landscape's character. 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.

8. 08

   Season and Place

   By latitude and altitude. they resent transplanting and will not mass in a border — the difference between a wildflower and a garden flower. The year 1856 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.

9. 09

   The Book and the Hand

   “Wild flowers of Georgetown, DC” was drawn by Rebecca Nourse and published 1856. This plate is Plate 91. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.

10. 10

    The Written Tradition

    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 a painting by likeness alone is the view of a child.

    The Book of Songs names more than 140 plants, most of them wild; Confucius said the Songs teach the names of birds, beasts and plants — natural history begins in the field. The difference is not of quality but of question: Europe asks what it is, China asks whom it resembles.