Perhaps one of the most familiar motifs of painting, the bowl of fruit still life, like Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit (1599), has come to represent an entire tradition of art making. The history of food and drink in the arts is a long one, with depictions of lively banquets, swinging grapes and loaves of bread stretching back beyond Ancient Greco-Roman times. In a contemporary context, food is often used as a representational object, standing in for lust, gluttony, consumerism, death and even the physical body. For some artists, the action of eating itself holds significant to their works, such as …
Perhaps one of the most familiar motifs of painting, the bowl of fruit still life, like Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit (1599), has come to represent an entire tradition of art making. The history of food and drink in the arts is a long one, with depictions of lively banquets, swinging grapes and loaves of bread stretching back beyond Ancient Greco-Roman times. In a contemporary context, food is often used as a representational object, standing in for lust, gluttony, consumerism, death and even the physical body. For some artists, the action of eating itself holds significant to their works, such as feminist artist Judy Chicago’s installation The Dinner Party (1974–1979), and the piles of candy in Felix Gonzalez-Torres’Untitled(Portrait of Ross in L.A.) (1991), which symbolized his deceased partner and brought attention to the AIDS crisis. From Andy Warhol’sCampbell Soup Cans (1962) to Wayne Thiebaud’s cakes, food is still widely popular subject matter.
