The oil painting by William Scott was selected for this post by British artist May van Millingen. Rather than photographing the finished dish, May created an illustration of a recipe by Jamie Oliver (pictured below) of mackerel with mixed tomato salad. Her illustrations have been commissioned by many leading brands and more of her work can be viewed on her website here.
William Scott, Mackerel, 1947
oil on canvas, 52 x 76cm, National Galleries of Scotland
Eat This Poem is a new blog that combines food and poetry in much the same way Feasting on Art considers food and art. The website is written by Nicole Gulotta who has an MFA in poetry enabling her to marry beautiful words with delicious food. Working with her on a collaboration only felt natural and when she suggested a post investigating William Carlos Williams and Pieter Bruegel, I knew I was fated to work with her. While an undergrad I double majored in both English and History of Art and in my final semester, I did an entire course in William Carlos Williams. My major paper considered the collection of poems titled Pictures from Bruegel which is a composite representation of Bruegel’s work through the viewpoint of Williams. The poetry illustrates the way in which Williams’ eye follows the canvas and his impressions while gazing upon the works.
Pieter Bruegel, The Harvesters, 1565
oil on wood, 118 x 160.7cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Adorning the cloaks and garments of royalty, the colour purple was often called imperial purple due to the close association. The word purple is a derivative of the original Greek porphura, the name of the Tyrian purple dye of antiquity extracted from a spiny snail. The pigment was extremely expensive to produce and only the very wealthy could afford clothes dyed the colour of grapes and plums. As a secondary colour, purple is wedged between red and blue on the colour wheel. The tones leaning towards the blue side of the spectrum were desired due to their association with the rare blue pigment favoured by artists and craftsmen.
Benjamin Roberts, Still life of plums with a cabbage white, 1862
oil on board, 16 x 21.5 cm, Private collection
Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse were two of the most influential Modernist artists working in the first half of the twentieth century. The two artists met in 1905 at one of the gatherings of Gertrude Stein who was a patron of Picasso‘s. Their work was – and still is – often compared and upon meeting, the two become both lifelong friends and rivals. Whereas Picasso often conjured his compositions from his imagination, Matisse preferred to work from nature and would complete much more expansive interiors around his subjects.
Left: Pablo Picasso, Vase, Bowl and Lemon, 1907,
oil on panel, 62 x 48 cm, Galerie Beyeler, Basel
Right: Henri Matisse, Still Life with Blue Tablecloth (detail), 1909,
88 x 118 cm, oil on canvas, The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg
The colour blue – reserved for the robes of the holiest of mothers – was one of the rarest and most expensive pigments in use during the Renaissance. For the depiction of Virgin Mary, only ultramarine was used due to its price and elusiveness as it is was found only in Asia and is presently mined in only a handful of places around the world. The name ultramarine was derived from the Italian oltramarion meaning ‘from beyond the sea’ because it was imported from Asia. Made from ground lapis lazuli, the pigment yielded a brilliant hue verging on the violet side rather than the greenish tint commonly found in the substitute colour, azurite.
Pablo Picasso, Still-Life with Cheese, 1944
oil on canvas, Private collection
