The Potato in Fine Art
Do you prefer your potatoes in a landscape or in a still life or in a stew? Come with me on a tour of the humble potato in art.
Candy Bedworth 3 May 2024
If you’re craving something sweet our selection of desserts represented in paintings will help you survive. I’ve prepared something I can hold on to when I feel I need a sweet snack. Or two. Hopefully, the paintings won’t make you crave sweets even more…
Andy Warhol had a sweet tooth, too. He admitted once: “all I ever really want is sugar”. He had his favorite Serendipity 3 café where he held parties and meetings, and this colorful dessert most probably comes from there. You can find it at 225 East 60th Street, between Second and Third Avenues in New York.
Oh, these doughnuts are so tempting… Who could possibly resist this hyperrealistic painting? And to make the situation worse, Sparnaay, a contemporary Dutch painter, specializes in hyperrealistic depictions of food. If you ever feel hungry, look up his paintings of burgers, fried eggs, or profiteroles… It’s a shame they’re not edible.
Having seen those doughnuts I need a short break…
(This painting is so consoling, I feel comforted to see that snacking on sweets in secret is a centuries-old problem.)
Wayne Thiebaud is an American painter most famous for depictions of ordinary objects. In the early 1960s, he centered his painting around food. This choice of popular products as subjects for painting and the use of bright colors brought him to be associated with Pop Art.
Some interpreted his works as expressing critique of American consumerism but Thiebaud claimed that they were born out of his nostalgia for old times rather than contempt.
To polish off I’m giving you a real feast. You can find here all kinds of fruit, alcohol, a pie, and even some bread. Jan Davidsz de Heem knew how to party. He was one of the most famous Flemish and Dutch (he lived both in Utrecht and Antwerp) still-life painters, and his specialization was pronkstilleven: very sumptuous still lifes.
The only thing missing in the painting is a person eating it all and then playing the lute.
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