Feast Your Eyes: The fashion of food in art explored in new exhibition at the Bowes Museum

Art Daily Newsletter

Arcimboldo, Summer. ©Southampton City Art Gallery. COUNTY DURHAM.- Exploring fashions in food and drink throughout Europe, the exhibition Feast Your Eyes is a celebration of the representation of food in art over the past five centuries. Ranging from Arcimboldo’s fantasies of the 16th Century to still life photographs by Irving Penn in the 20th Century, the exhibition, which opened at The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle on Saturday 6 October, explores themes including Still Life, Faith , From Market to Table, Fashionable Beverages, and Feast. The exhibition looks at how food is used to convey a story, or as a message, as symbolism or decoration. It considers the changing fashions in food and how these influenced artists’ depictions of food in their work. One of the earliest works in the show, lent by Southampton City Art Gallery, is a fantastical reference to Summer by the 16th Century artist, Guiseppe Arcimboldo; one of the artist’s famous fruit and ve ... More