Art

Item Description

ARTIST:    Alain Allemand
TITLE:       Victoria Ammoniac 01
MEDIUM:  Acrylic on paper, 16” x 20”, unframed

This original artwork was created for Art on Science: 26 études an internattional portfolio featuring pictures by artists and words by scientists. This written commentary is by Gisèle Haan-Archipoff of the Biology Department at l’Université de Strasbourg:
 
Victoria amazonica is the largest water lily in the world! It was originally named Victoria regia, In honor of Queen Victoria who had just reached the throne in 1837.
 
This aquatic species is native to the basins of the Amazon River. Its leaves can reach 3m in diameter[9 ft.], forming immense trays, floating peacefully on the surface of the basins (the English call them “tea trays”). The upper side is green, smooth, shiny, covered with a wax on which the water slides… In contrast, the underside is not smooth and reveals a remarkable architecture! A network of protuberant rigid ribs radiates from the petiole of the leaf, the center of the plateau. These ribs are reinforced by multiple transverse rays.
 
The structure of the fabric that makes up the leaf itself is amazing, many air gaps, like “voids” filled with air, optimize the flotation. All of this together provides flexibility, strength and stability to these huge leaves.
 
The dodecagonal greenhouse, or “Victoria Haus”, renamed “Greenhouse Bary”, was built purposely to accommodate the giant water lily. Its glass structure, comprised of twelve sides, houses a large round pond dedicated to the culture and development of the royal water lily.
 
Was the architect inspired by the fascinating structure of the underside of these leaves to elaborate this structure of glass and metal? Round like a leaf of Victoria, but 12 sides, 12 “ribs” of metal which are both light and strong, like the lignified rigid ribs which underlie the leaf? Transparent glass as the aerenchyma of leaf tissue?
 
Consciously or not, this similarity, as the artist portrays, makes the architecture of the greenhouse a reflection of the invisible, an illumination of the architecture hidden beneath the smooth surface of the unfolded leaf.
 
Structures that echo, complement, embellish, harmonize… Victoria amazonica would not survive without the heated waters of its round basin, without the heat, the tropical atmosphere of the greenhouse… Soft, warm, all-encompassing atmosphere that, as soon as the door closes, transports you far away… as a motionless journey in this luminous cocoon of green… But without the greenhouse, no door to close, the leaves of the giant water lily are in peril.

Item Special Note

Free domestic shipping.

All artworks are 16” x 20”, unframed and will be shipped with a printed copy of the scientist’s text.

For further information about the portfolio, please visit our Art on Science: 26 études website: http://AS26project.com