11 paintings by famous artists about food, from which an appetite can play out

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Food has been a source of inspiration for many artists throughout art history, from pop art paintings of desserts and cans of soup that will drool to eerie portraits of fruits and vegetables that give you a nervous shiver. But one way or another, each of the paintings deserves close attention from the sophisticated viewer.

1. Claes Oldenburg

Claes Oldenburg is a famous pop artist. His work, The Floor Burger, was created in 1962 for his installation, The Store. For this installation, many pieces of food found in American culture have been recreated as sculptures. At the installation, you could see a giant piece of chocolate cake or a huge ice cream cone. Oldenburg called this type of sculpture soft sculpture, as it was created in order to attract attention and arouse the desire to touch one or another "food".

2. Clara Peters

Clara Peters is one of the most prominent Flemish still life painters. Not much is known about her life, and most of the information we have about her is gleaned from her paintings. It is known that her first painting dates from 1607 and that the artist was most likely from Antwerp. Some of her paintings have a signature inscribed on silver knives. In her works, Clara showed beautifully colored pieces of various products such as artichokes, cherries, pies, pretzels. In some of her paintings, such as Still Life with Cheese, Almonds and Pretzels, her mini-self-portrait is seen on the lid of a jug. She also often added flowers to her still lifes. Peters is one of the most important still life painters with beautifully crafted food art. To date, it is known about thirty-nine paintings with her signature.

3. Frans Snyders

This painting, now owned by the Louvre, was created by the 17th century artist Frans Snyders. His teacher was the famous Pieter Bruegel the Elder. In this work, entitled Fruits and Vegetables with Monkey, Parrot and Squirrel, the viewer sees a wide variety of different foods such as watermelon, corn, pears, apples, grapes, artichokes, cherries, apricots and grenadines. But this picture has something different from other Flemish still lifes - the scene does not unfold in the kitchen or in some other interior. In the background, the landscape is clearly visible, which is very uncharacteristic for paintings of this genre.

4. Andy Warhol

There is no such list of culinary arts that does not include Campbell's Soup Cans by the famous Andy Warhol. Warhol, arguably the most famous pop artist in the world, has created numerous works with Campbell's various cans of soup. Pop artists were heavily inspired by the post-war consumer culture of the United States. So they took everyday items like those found in many supermarkets and created art using these imagery.

Like celebrities, comics, advertisements, and food cans were also foods that many Americans loved to consume, and Warhol loved to use them all in his artistic practice. Campbell's Soups was one of the first works created by Warhol. Then he began to create several different versions of the same subject. In 1962, Andy exhibited Campbell's Soup Cans for the first time, displaying thirty-two canvases on the shelves depicting soup with different flavors.

5. Wayne Thibault

Wayne Thibault is an American artist known for his delightful paintings of cakes, milkshakes, pies, ice cream, candy and pastries. So if you are a sweet tooth, you will definitely love Wayne's culinary arts. His paintings are executed in beautiful and delicate pastel colors such as pink and yellow. It is interesting to know that Thibault uses a knife when he paints, so that he adds paint to the cakes like frosting. Many of his paintings of sweets seem to have real cake texture inside them due to the specific drawing Thibault uses to create his works.

6. James Rosenquist

James Rosenquist is another American pop artist who often featured various types of food in his paintings. He has always portrayed culinary art as ultimately appealing and delicious, from chunks of chocolate cake to whipped cream and icing that can whet your appetite. James copied the images seen in the ad, where everything was done perfectly - a clever marketing ploy so that the viewer would not hesitate to buy the advertised product. He explored the nature of consumer culture using imagery seen in magazines, television advertisements, and billboards.

In his painting "The President-elect", the artist even placed a piece of cake next to the image of President John F. Kennedy and the image of the Chevrolet car. Kennedy was known for using the media throughout his campaign, so by positioning all of these things together, Rosenquist looked at them as media images in demand.

7. Giuseppe Arcimboldo

The Four Seasons consists of four different paintings depicting a human head made of different products and colors, representing the season to which they belong. It is one of the most famous works of the 16th century Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo. It was created in 1573. Autumn shows a face created from pears, apples, pomegranates, mushrooms, grapes, pumpkins. In the winter portrait, we see wilting flowers, and in the lower right corner - lemons. The spring face is made from a variety of multi-colored blooming flowers. The portrait of summer shows a face made of leaves, cherries, plums, peaches, cucumbers, corn. And the dress worn by the personification of summer is made of oats.

8. Paul Cezanne

Paul Cezanne is a very famous French post-impressionist painter, whom many have probably heard of. He is especially famous for his fruit still lifes, most of which were painted in the 1880s and 1890s. Apples, pears, quince, lemons, cherries - all this was written by Cezanne. Paul is recognized as one of the most important artists in the history of contemporary art, influencing movements such as Cubism and Fauvism. In his still lifes, Cezanne explored the relationships of form, geometric shapes, light and color. During his fruitful career, he painted over one hundred and seventy still lifes.

9. Jo Ann Callis

Jo Ann Callis is an American artist and photographer. In her photography series, Cheap Thrills, she focuses on visually pleasing images of food. This series of images was created in the early 1990s. Ann uses vibrant colors such as pink, yellow and red. Some of the desserts she chose to depict are partly similar to body parts, so the artist explores ideas associated with intimacy and desire through these anthropomorphic forms.

10. Marina Abramovich

Another interesting piece of culinary art is a video created by renowned artist and performance artist Marina Abramovich, in which the artist eats an onion while reading a short essay. This video shows a close-up of Abramovich's face as she eats onions and cries over the pungent onion scent. She also talks about many unpleasant things when describing her current lifestyle and thoughts. The video was created in 1996.

In this emotional piece of video art, Marina recites:.

11. Felix Gonzalez-Torres

Portrait of Ross in Los Angeles is a very gentle and beautiful piece of culinary art about romantic love, loss and grief. Ross, who was inspired by this work, was the partner of the artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres. Ross died of AIDS the same year the piece was created. In this moving figure, Gonzalez-Torres placed a stack of candy wrapped in shiny paper, weighing about one hundred and seventy-five pounds, which was supposed to represent his partner's ideal weight. However, everyone was invited to take a candy with them, so the mountain of sweets began to weigh less and less. This hints that the body is weakening and finally disappearing. This work is a meditation on love and loss, but it also reflects the time it was created and the AIDS crisis, which unfortunately took many lives.

Continuing the topic, read also about what made Thomas Hart Benton famous and why his work is still considered one of the best in the world.