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April 2024 • Alessia Delisi

Art is served

Originating as a minor genre, still life steadily gained prominence and garnered increased appreciation over time. From Caravaggio to contemporary performances, the age-old connection between art and food continues to unfold like an enduring saga.

In the beginning, there was Caravaggio’s Canestra di frutta (Basket of Fruit), which was painted at the close of the sixteenth century. The masterpiece depicts a basket brimming with produce, with particular emphasis skillfully placed on the rotting apple, grapes, and figs at its center. Considered by many to represent the very first still life painting in art history, or at the very least, the most ground-breaking, Basket of Fruit thrusts inanimate objects – once seen as mere accessories – into the spotlight with extraordinary realism. The history of this painting, which Caravaggio himself famously described as being as challenging as depicting human figures, is inextricably linked to the tumultuous events of Italy.

Not only did the painting once form part of the esteemed collection of Cardinal Federico Borromeo, who later bestowed it upon the Ambrosiana Museum and Library in Milan, where it remains today, but it also left a lasting imprint on the nation’s currency. In fact, appearing on the new one hundred thousand lire bill in 1983, the painting symbolized the inauguration of an era of extravagant spending. Continuing to captivate audiences today, Caravaggio’s ground-breaking Basket of Fruit is currently on a rare loan, serving as the focal point of the “Caravaggio’s Canestra, Secrets and Enigmas of Still Life” exhibition in Asti. You can catch the exhibition at Palazzo Mazzetti until April 7, 2024.

Left, Caravaggio, Basket of Fruit, 1597-1600.
Right, Porcelain sculpture by Daniel Spoerri for Meissen Couture 1710.

Marking a turning point in art history, Caravaggio’s legacy, coupled with the contributions of various Dutch and Flemish painters of the seventeenth century, propelled still life into a new era of popularity, all thanks to a new class of patrons whose interests tended more towards merchandise and less towards biblical themes. Fueled by the decline in demand for religious artworks, no doubt spurred on by the Protestant Reformation, artists specializing in portraying breakfast scenes and set tables became increasingly prevalent in artistic workshops. Among these esteemed artists were Abraham van Beyeren, Pieter Claesz, Willem Claesz Heda, and Willem Kalf, whose still lifes, yond their religious connotations,

succeeded in providing profound insights into both cultural and economic aspects, as well as reflecting the values and preferences of their intended audiences. Still lifes featuring fish, for example, tended to pay homage to The Hague and its bustling market scene, while the prosperous city of Haarlem was often well-suited to breakfast scenes (in the style of Pieter Claesz and Willem Claesz Heda). Utrecht embraced the Flemish tradition of floral still lifes, as exemplified by Ambrosius Bosschaert, who once fetched the then rather astounding sum of one thousand guilders for one of his compositions (a remarkable figure considering a good portrait on the Dutch art market typically cost no more than sixty guilders).

Giacomo Legi, Basket with vegetables, platter of strawberries, vase of flowers and citrus fruit on table;

Maestro SB, Still life with lemons and onions, c. 1650-55, Fondazione Accademia Carrara, Bergamo;

Domenico Cresti known as il Passignano, Wedding banquet of Ferdinand of Tuscany and Christina of Lorraine, 1590, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum ©KHM-Museumsverband;

In more recent years, the still life genre has seen a resurgence of interest, with notable attention directed towards the Belgian artist James Ensor. This year is the 75th anniversary of his death and to mark the occasion, the Mu.ZEE museum in Ensor’s hometown of Ostend has organized an exhibition entitled “Rose, Rose, Rose à mes yeux: James Ensor and Still Life in Belgium from 1830 to 1930.” Showcasing around 50 still life works by the tormented painter, the exhibition also features pieces by other, later rediscovered artists such as Marthe Donas, Louis Thevenet, and Walter Vaes. Influenced by the grotesque style of his fellow countryman Hieronymus Bosch, as well as drawing inspiration from carnival themes and masks, Ensor fostered anarchic ideas and harbored a deep disdain for urban bourgeois society, with his painting style foreshadowing the expressionist and surrealist movements that would later pave the way for the twentieth century.

Market scenes featuring fish, meat, fruits, and vegetables, as well as kitchen interiors and set tables, serve as recurring subjects in many of the works, from Renato Guttuso’s La Vucciria, inspired by both Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit and Annibale Carracci’s opulent Butcher’s Shop, to Caroline Walker’s paintings and reinterpretations of the Last Supper by artists like Andy Warhol, Salvador Dalí, David LaChapelle, Yue Minjun, and many others. In contrast, Mat Collishaw, in his series “Last Meal on Death Row, Texas,” opts to move away from contemporary norms, drawing his inspiration from seventeenth-century vanitas paintings. The theme of these historical artworks, which often symbolized the fleeting nature of beauty and the transient human condition, is employed by Collishaw to depict the final meals of people sentenced to death.

Mat Collishaw, works from the series Last Meal on Death Row, Texas , 2010-2011.

From the 1960s onwards, food transitioned from being merely an object of artistic creation, as seen in the works of the Futurists, such as Marinetti and Fillìa’s Carneplastico (meat sculpture), to becoming the primary subject of performative artistic expression. In 1968, for instance, Daniel Spoerri, the inventor of Eat Art, opened a restaurant in Dusseldorf where a rotating cast of friends, chefs, artists, and poets all took turns behind the stove. Amidst its intimate setting, the restaurant’s menu consistently surprised diners with unconventional offerings such as python ragout, slices of elephant trunk, and ant omelets. The remaining leftovers, following the meal, were then glued down to the table (thus earning the name “tableau piège” or “snare-picture”) and later sold as artworks. Three years later, in New York City, Gordon Matta-Clark, Caroline Goodden, and Tina Girouard launched Food, a hybrid establishment blending elements of a restaurant with a stage for performances and events which, beyond serving the local community of struggling artists, reimagined food as the raw material for creative expression.

Michele Delisi, La tavola imbandita, 1975.

“Carsten Mushroom”, one of the dishes served at Brutalisten, the Berlin restaurant of artist Carsten Höller.

Willem Claesz Heda, Still Life with Oysters, a Silver Tazza, and Glassware, 1635. From the Collection of Rita and Frits Markus, Bequest of Rita Markus, 2005

This trend was then built upon by both Rirkrit Tiravanija, who seeks to disrupt traditional museum and gallery spaces by offering Thai and Asian cuisine to the public, and Vanessa Beecroft, who continues to orchestrate theatrical feasts that pay special attention to the color of the food and the impulses of her diners.

Similarly, Carsten Höller, who back in 2008 opened “The Double Club” in London, a bar-restaurant-nightclub that experimented with the fusion of Western and Congolese culture, recently unveiled the Stockholm-based Brutalisten, a restaurant characterized by strict culinary rules (allowing only one ingredient to be cooked at a time), which, according to Höller, promises to deliver “intense pleasure,” akin to the experience of good art.