Food and Feasting in Art (with Recipes)

The depiction of food in art spans across cultures and recorded time, stretching back to ancient Greece and Rome where banquets and bacchanals were celebrated in paintings and mosaics. This course is based on many of the world's masterpieces of art in various media and explores the bountiful relationship between the art we view and the food we eat. We read about, look at pictures of and even possibly smell and taste food (should you choose to prepare any of the recipes presented). For example, carefully viewing Michelangelo's The Last Supper, we discover which foods beyond bread and wine he chose for the menu (FYI: it contains a religious-dietary misstep). And in Vincent van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters, we consider contemporaneous recipes which van Gogh's peasants may have used to prepare their repast. We study the often subtle, symbolic meaning of an edible in the work of art: legumes = poverty, oranges = energy, mollusks = virginity, etc. The instructor also shares his tour, "Food in Art," which he led at LACMA.