STORY BEHIND THE ART OF Vincent Jeannerot

25th Annual International

American Society of Botanical Artists and Wave Hill

Banana Tree's Flower

Musa acuminata 'Dwarf Cavendish'

This watercolor of "Banana Tree’s Flower" is part of a project for my next book in which I dedicate a chapter to Madeira. On this island, located in the Atlantic Ocean, bananas are traditionally grown. Madeira exports its production, an important source of income for the island, to Europe and elsewhere.

I traveled there in January 2022 specially to paint this banana flower. I particularly like its purple color contrasting with the green color of the small bananas.

I went to a banana plantation located in the municipality of Jardim Do Mar, on the south coast of the island, to choose the most elegant and shimmering flower. I selected one in full bloom. The flower I cut was at the end of the banana bunch. All this, of course, was with the agreement of the grower.

When you look at this watercolor, the massive banana flower contrasts with the lightness of the stem. Visually it is a very colorful, imposing mass and when you get closer you can see, thanks to the transparency of the watercolor, the lightness of the plant fibers. The delicacy of certain details lightens the whole. What seduced me in this subject, is the purple, which is a rather rare color in nature. The use of the cross-hatching technique and many passages of paint allowed me to obtain the depth and intensity of this purple color.

I hope that the public will be challenged by the originality of this subject. The color and size of this flower are very present and have a strong visual impact. The shape of the banana flower is unconventional, more contemporary.

The imposing size of the subject was a first challenge and the complexity of keeping the paper wet throughout the work was another. This piece joined a hundred unpublished watercolors that will appear in my next book, Inspirations Botaniques.

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