A Brief History of Food Porn
The visual capture of food today works with minimal effort. The intention behind it is often the immortalisation and artistic presentation of delicious food. However, while our Instagram feeds are littered with tasty foods, most people eat quite normal meals in their daily lives. So a future analysis of our eating habits based on Instagram or Pinterest would result in a historically completely distorted picture. Similar things happen when you interpret paintings of food for a realistic representation of early modern eating habits.
Scientists from the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University have examined 140 paintings of food made between 1500 and 2000.[1] It was discovered that the most frequently displayed foods did not correlate with the most commonly eaten foods. Artists and clients tended to paint or have painted special, desirable or aesthetically pleasing foods. Paintings of food thus did not serve the historically correct representation of reality. Instead, the viewer was to be provided with an aesthetically pleasing visual experience that would display the wealth of the commissioning family, present the artist’s craft repertoire, or visualize a nation’s extensive trading networks.
The detailed analysis of the paintings showed that 38.57% were meat, 19.29% vegetables and 75.71% fruits. Although the most important meat source of early modern families of the middle and upper classes were fowl or game, the meat category was dominated by shellfish. Shellfish and fish were particularly common in Dutch painting, which is not surprising as over 50% of the Dutch border is surrounded by water.
Different foods were charged with different symbolic meanings. The oyster is still said to have an aphrodisiac effect. In paintings, the oyster could indicate the transient nature of pleasure on the one hand, and romantic and erotic relationships on the other. Lobsters, which were difficult to get even in the near-sea Netherlands, symbolized wealth. The lobster’s ability to move both forwards and backwards was intended to remind one of the instability of life. The removal of the shell during the growth phase was associated with the idea of renewal and specifically with the resurrection of Christ.
Fruits were depicted more often than vegetables. The most popular vegetable, the artichoke, was found in 5% of the paintings. It was painted because of its shape, through which the painter could show his craftsmanship. The same applied to the most frequently depicted fruit, lemon (30.71%). The correct representation of the complex surface structure, the intense colours and the juicy interior of lemons established itself in Dutch painting as a skill test for young painters.
Already in early modern painting there was a strong connection between the joy of eating and the representation of food. Foods that were aesthetically pleasing in form, colour and texture or best presented the good taste and wealth of their clients were most frequently painted. There are therefore considerably more paintings of exotic fruits and shellfish than of native cucumbers or root vegetables. In other words, painters and clients were more interested in presenting haute cuisine — as it happens today on Instagram and Pinterest. People want to make their lives more interesting and luxurious, for which food is a very good starting point.
Text by Miriam Edmunds, written on the occasion of the exhibition Schaulust at Photoforum Pasquart, curated by Danaé Panchaud and Miriam Edmunds.
Click here to see the Photoforum Pasquart’s Pinterest-Boards on the history of food porn
