Found in solitary places, and only at intervals of several years. Arethusa Bulbosa. Orchidae (1856)
Jocnol reaes|Found in solitary places, and only at intervals of several years. Arethusa Bulbosa. Orchidae (1856)
Found in solitary places, and only at intervals of several years. Arethusa Bulbosa. Orchidae (1856)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast amber
- upright 1.39 : 1
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 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
Measured on this plate: flower colour is sparing, 0.9% of the sheet against 0.0% of foliage, the cast tending amber — as with pale or white blooms, outline and tone do the talking. 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. A single plant, laid out with nothing hidden.
Composition
The sheet is tall. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant fills 69% of the sheet, centred near the centre — the herbarium way, drawn to be read whole.
Line and Colour
In the later nineteenth century chromolithography took over: colour printed rather than painted, line demoted. Take a loupe to three places: petal edge, leaf vein, caption. An unbroken line means engraving; colour crossing the outline means a hand. 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
谏院过时荣棣萼，谢庭归去踏芝兰。
—— 唐·刘禹锡《送国子令狐博士赴兴元觐省》
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. Worldwide, richest on tropical mountains. Chinese cymbidiums come from the hills of the south. The year 1856 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
“Wild flowers of Georgetown, DC” carries only Rebecca Nourse's name. From drawing to plate the sheet passed through several hands — the engraver aimed at accuracy, the colourist at speed, and between them lies each plate's unevenness.
What to Take Away
If you keep one line, keep Guo Xi's: from afar its momentum, up close its texture. A flora exists to be consulted; look long enough and you forget to consult — someone in 1856 gave a whole day to a single flower.
About this plate
Found in solitary places, and only at intervals of several years. Arethusa Bulbosa. Orchidae (1856) is plate 68, from Wild flowers of Georgetown, DC, drawn by Rebecca Nourse. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: Georgeotwn, D.C., 1856.
