I believe that a well-rounded life requires a bend here and there. I’m not necessarily suggesting a dip into hallucinogens – rather a little break from the superego, a little indulgence in the id. Turn off that big brain of yours for a moment. Sit down. Pig out.
With that in mind, I’ve put together a collection of art history works that I want to eat. I am putting forward here a theory of “palatability” that is not intellectual but carnal, not even necessarily seen but felt. Honestly, I think the art world could use a little more of that.
Most works depicting food in art history, I suspect, are not tasteful. Dutch Vanitas paintings are perhaps the biggest culprit, even though they contain a veritable cornucopia of things that are tasty in real life: juicy fruit, cured meat, fire hydrant red lobsters. Not to mention the paintings of meals already chosen by someone else, which is gross. Not a single work in this genre has been found palatable.
Take Jan Davidsz. de Heem’s (uneaten) ‘Still Life with a Lobster and a Silver Cup’ (c.1649–59), for example. An eerie cold light washes over the scene like a surveillance spotlight; the scene is so quiet that it doesn’t feel real. The oysters are meaty, a split melon spitting out its seeds is almost bloodyand a crab, for God’s sake, is looking at you. The scene is like the last thing you see before you die. Even if you knew nothing of the damn history of how these goods ended up on this table in the first place (which I won’t go into, because we have slippery minds here), nor of the fact that paintings of this genre are meant to remind you of your impending death, this meal is clearly cursed.
Don’t even get me started on the pathetic picnic basket, not to mention the terrible atmosphere, of Édouard Manet’s so-called “Luncheon on the Grass” (1863) – no. Or the sad little pieces of bread in Da Vinci’s The Last Supper (1495–98). No! Terrible. Not tasty.
Let’s get into the tasty part. “Flesh-shaped stone”: tasty. I mean, just look at it. You know it’s tasty when I don’t even have to explain why it’s tasty. The top layer is perfectly caramelized. The striped layer of fat suggests a soft, juicy bite (I mean, if it wasn’t actually a stone). The presentation, with its cute golden throne, is fantastic, befitting a Michelin-starred restaurant.
Now that you’re with me, I’m starting to lose you a little. The Romans, despite some unsavory practices that we won’t go into here, really knew how to live. And some of those frescoes they made are delightful.
Take this one, dated to the first century AD. Forget that it could depict a maenad – a follower of Dionysus, the god of wine – bringing in food for an unimaginably wonderful feast. Let the art history fall away, and think of all the times you’ve seen this scene in real life: a family member, a loved one, a friend – someone to break bread with, to share a meal with – in a sun-bleached place . threshold with a bowl for the table. What is actually on the scale? Doesn’t matter. It’s like the box is inside Pulp Fiction (1994) — whatever it is, it shines.
Okay, be patient. We’re about to get even more abstract. I argue that ‘nice’ is a state of mind. For example, our staff reporter Isa Farfan – along with part of Twitter – wants to eat Moo Deng. That is what I’m talking about. Obviously no one is chasing that juicy little hippo, but what we need to do is expand our sense of what is delicious beyond what is appropriate, feasible, or even possible.
With that in mind, I’m giving you mostly haystacks, or rather many of the works of the Impressionist movement. It’s not so much that these topics look like big bubble gum drops. It’s the candy-colored pastel of Monet’s brushstrokes, which were never intended to capture the thing itself, but rather that thing’s specific moment in time. I wish I could put this painting under my tongue and let it dissolve like one of Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ candies (which, if you understand the essence of this philosophy, are actually not tasty, because they remind you of the tragic death of his beloved). Haystacks are not pleasant, but the feeling this painting evokes is. The taste of that late summer light says to me: there is still time, but it goes, it goes – and in the meantime enjoy how sweet this life can be.
