Food and wine have played a large part in my life, mostly eating and drinking it but also reading about it. I was about to list a few writers I've liked, but got stuck at Elizabeth David. I have admired food photographers, Robert Freson and Irving Penn in particular, but have never tackled it myself. Here is a loaf of bread on a fifty year old bread board.
I've always loved that bread board. And what a whimsically shaped loaf!
ReplyDeleteOh Jillian, like you I wish I could look at this wonderful shot of a loaf of bread and simply appreciate the subject for what is- a lovely loaf of bread. Art School however, still prevents me from doing so. Instead I see a Magritte-like surrealistic portrait (please don't laugh). The marble appears as clouds over which the board, knife and loaf hover. The indecipherable lettering on the board, knife resting somewhat precariously near the boards edge,and the ambiguous inner glow/spot lit lighting and PAC-MAN-like shape of the loaf heightens the mystery as well. Really, I'm not crazy- just someone who after graduating from Art School over 25 years ago sadly continues to be corrupted by it. Sigh...
ReplyDeleteBut somebody taught you to write.
ReplyDeleteNumerous years of schooling and some 20 odd years of writing reviews off and on about art and music (which I continue to do for ClassicsToday.com) helps. Incidentally, while I adore Elizabeth David much has happened since. Books and DVD videos by the Two Fat Ladies are highly recommended. As is the surviving (Jennifer Patterson sadly succumbed to lung cancer in 1999) Fat Lady's memoir "Spilling the Beans" by Clarissa Dickson Wright. "White Heat" by Marco Pierre White is also impressive.
ReplyDeleteTo return to Magritte. He brought up that a painting of a pipe is not a pipe. So if this is not a loaf of bread, but a photo of bread, then what is a photographer's relationship with reality? Or rather how does a photographer change what is in front of the lens?
ReplyDeleteThe relationship is one of selection. A subject inspires you, you take the picture, the result of which is a visual record of that moment. By doing this you artificially enable the viewer to see the subject differently, in a way they wouldn't have been able to otherwise.
ReplyDeleteIf you were to eat the photo, would it then be bread?
ReplyDeleteNo. It would still be a photo.
ReplyDeleteWhen I'm hungry I have a difficult time looking at art and have to go to the Museum cafe no matter how great the masterpiece.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why you should never go to a museum on an empty stomach.
ReplyDelete