Farm to Table: Art, Food, and Identity in the Age of Impressionism

NOW ON VIEW AT SAM DOWNTOWN 

At the end of the nineteenth century, artists such as Claude Monet, Eva Gonzalès, and Paul Gauguin took as their subject France’s relationship with food. The country’s bountiful agriculture and the skill of its chefs had long helped to define its strength and position on the international stage. From cultivation to consumption, food was central to notions of glory, but also to those of collective pain. For artists committed to depicting daily circumstances, food was a natural subject.
 
Featuring more than one hundred illustrations, Farm to Table showcases representations of sumptuous ingredients and severe privation, bountiful meals and agrarian crises. The works highlight the possibilities and precariousness of France’s colonial and industrial projects; the evolving norms of gender and class; the tenuous relationship between Paris and the provinces; and shifting understandings of science and the environment. With essays exploring the economics of wheat growing and the dairy industry, the relationship between food and gender, and the role of colonialism, the catalogue spans the age of Impressionism and provides a new way to consider the era’s depictions of modern life at the intersection of art, food, and social politics.
 
Hardcover: 224 pages

Publisher: Yale University Press (November 5, 2024)

ISBN: 9780300273816

Dimensions: 9.7 x 0.9 x 11.2 inches