Utagawa Hiroshige – Prawn Dumplings
Utagawa Hiroshige was one of the best later artists of the Japanese ukiyo-e tradition. Ukiyo-e translated means “pictures of the floating world” and it is the common genre for Japanese woodblock paintings. This art form was very popular in Edo (the former name of the city Tokyo). To make ukiyo-e paintings first the master would...
Chinese Chicken Congee
Painted in the Sung Dynasty (960-1279), Mother Hen and Chicks is from “The Golden Era” of Chinese painting. Animals, flowers, and birds were common subjects of this era along with ethereal landscapes. Artists sought to accurately depict their subjects as well as capture their internal substance. It was thought that brushstrokes revealed the spirit of...
Weaver Hawkins – Citrus Cordial
Weaver Hawkins, also known as Raokin, was born in London before moving to Australia. His work was heavily impacted by his experiences in WWII where he lost complete control of his right arm and partial control of his left. His art is characterized by vibrant colour and form influenced by Paul Cézanne’s tendency to map...
Giacomo Ceruti – Chicken Tetrazzini
Baroque artist Giacomo Ceruti was also known as Pitocchetto, Italian for little beggar, because of his numerous canvases featuring peasants begging. He is known for his realistic style of painting and often placed his still lifes and portraits in front of a dark background. He focused on genre paintings but also worked with still life...
Henri Fantin-Latour – Pistachio Rose Water Macarons
Henri Fantin-Latour was a French painter known for both his flower paintings and group portraits. His style was very precise and he adhered to traditional techniques even though his contemporaries were the radical artists Édouard Manet and Pierre Auguste Renoir (1). His painting has a smooth enamel quality and his palette is quite somber and...
Giuseppe Arcimboldo – Crespelle with Bacon Mushroom Ragu
Italian painter Guiseppe Arcimboldo was know for his portraits but unlike his peers of the 16th century, the faces he depicted were composed of individual objects grouped in a very specific and deliberate way. Out of his body of work The Vegetable Gardener (c.1590) is unique in that it is a double image, first as...
Édouard Manet – Almond Cake with Grapes & Peaches
I was given the opportunity along with a handful of other food bloggers to submit a guest post to the wonderful site The Kitchn. This is the second time I have worked with a still life by Manet and you can find most of the general information about his life and art in my previous...
Andy Warhol – Tomato Soup Cake
Let me first point out that if you decide to make this cake for anyone, call it by its other name, ‘Mystery Cake.’ I first heard of Tomato Soup Cake when I was flipping through a Michigan cookbook while working at a living history museum. This was after my Freshman year of college when cooking...
Paul Gauguin – Caramelized Apple Omelet
Paul Gauguin (full name Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin) was a Post-Impressionist painter whose art heralded the return to the pastoral (idealized landscapes) and Primitivism. He was a major influence in the development of Modern art with his bold colours and design oriented paintings. His travels in Central America impacted his work as he incorporated the...
Georgia O’Keeffe – Apple Crisp with Caramel Sauce
Georgia O’Keeffe is primarily known for her union of abstraction and representation in her works of flowers, rocks, shells, and animal bones. Her flower still life paintings are usually of a single bloom that completely fills the canvas. The scale and composition of her paintings transform her subjects into interesting abstract images with strong lines...
Giovanna Garzoni – Lemon Risotto with Homemade Stock
If you are familiar with still life paintings then you will know that the majority of them will feature a lemon somewhere on the canvas. Traditionally citrus fruits represented the wealth of the patron commissioning the painting because they were exotic commodities that required a substantial sum of money to acquire. In an era where...
Osias Beert – Vlaai with Berry Compote
The Baroque Flemish painter Osias Beert is known for his still life paintings of flowers and breakfast scenes. The breakfast pieces are commonly known by their Dutch name ontbijtjes which translates to ‘little breakfasts.’ These works are characterized by their high vantage point where the viewer is looking down at the scene and this forced...