STORY BEHIND THE ART OF ANNE MANTINI
24th Annual International
American Society of Botanical Artists and Marin Art and Garden Center
San Marzano, Italian Immigrant
Solanum lycopersicum
Over the past year I have been painting plants that are not native geographically but grow in backyards that are local to me near Toronto, Ontario. During this time, I have grown many ‘immigrant’ vegetables in my own backyard but none of them satisfied my wish to represent the pride of the plant and human experience in my paintings. At a family dinner, I casually asked my sister: “What do you have in your garden that I can paint?” She replied with a grin, “Not much!” At our next get-together, her husband plopped onto the dinner table a long vine with a mess of leaves and four tomatoes hanging off the side. “Here you go!” Of course, I recognized this branching stem with its compound leaves and plum tomatoes, as I have seen it in many backyards and even at the local grocery store. Even though I was not convinced it would satisfy my vision for a painting, I took the specimen home with me.
These tomato seeds were originally gifted by the Viceroyalty of Peru in 1770 to the Campania region of what is now Italy. They were cultivated in the town of San Marzano sul Sarno, near Naples, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. They then immigrated to North America in the pockets of Italian immigrants. In 1955, these plum-shaped tomatoes were officially recognized by the USDA and the EU as Pomodoro San Marzano dell'Agro Sarnese-Nocerino.
Today, these tomatoes are quite common, often enjoyed with pizza and in our favorite spaghetti sauce. However, it was not until I brought this specimen into my studio to draw that I saw its special qualities. A small, thin clamp gripped the stem while the three elongated oval tomatoes reached out to me, unwavering under the tilted lamps (one of the tomatoes had dropped off in transportation). The plant’s skin was luminous but thick and dense, its oddly pinnate leaves were incredibly intricate but tough and the densely glandular hair stood firm along the stem and leaves. A smart and hard-working plant it surely is. As it matured before my eyes, the leaves unfurled and the dark olive-green skin of the fruit turned to yellow-orange and finally deep rich red. I felt my pride grow. Over a few weeks, I layered more color pencil than I ever have before; ten more layers after I originally thought I was done, it was finally finished!
I discovered that I enjoy creating contrasts with varying degree of shadows and I delighted in the challenge of capturing the botanical life of this ‘immigrant’ tomato in a 2-D piece of art. As I painted, I saw this San Marzano for what it really is: a proud, very hardy plant with a lot to contribute, representing a small community that is now part of a whole culture and beyond!
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Read more about this artist's work: Abundant Future