Matisse, Picasso, Hockney--they may not have been from the same period,
but they all painted still lifes of food. And they are not alone. Andy
Warhol painted soup cans, Claes Oldenburg sculpted an ice cream cone on
the top of a building in Cologne, Jack Kerouac's Sal ate apple pie
across the country, and Truman Capote served chicken hash at the Black
and White Ball. Food has always played a role in art, but how well and
what did the artists themselves eat? Exploring a panoply of artworks of
food, cooking, and eating from Europe and the Americas, The Modern Art
Cookbook opens a window into the lives of artists, writers, and poets
in the kitchen and the studio throughout the twentieth century and
beyond.
From the early moderns to the impressionists; from symbolists to cubists
and surrealists; from the Beats to the abstractionists of the New York
School, Mary Ann Caws surveys how artists and writers have eaten,
cooked, and depicted food. She examines the parallels between the art of
cuisine and the visual arts and literature, using artworks, diaries,
novels, letters, and poems to illuminate the significance of particular
ingredients and dishes in the lives of the world's greatest artists. In
between, she supplies numerous recipes from these artists--including
Ezra Pound's poetic eggs, Cézanne's baked tomatoes, and Monet's
madeleines--alongside one hundred color illustrations and
thought-provoking selections from both poetry and prose. A joyous and
illuminating guide to the art of food, The Modern Art Cookbook is a
feast for the mind as well as the palate.
