Food Forever: Pieter Claesz

By JULIETTE ROSSANT How many times have you made a dish so perfectly that you have wanted to preserve its beauty for posterity? Cookbooks tell us how to reproduce great recipes; recently they have come with full-color, often sumptuous photos Still, their primary function remains to instruct about cooking. How many books explain the art of plating food and the beauty of food at presentation, compared to the number of cookbooks? Well, if you hunger for food as art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, may have the answer you're looking for and that from a man you've very likely never heard of: Pieter Claesz (pronounced Peter Klaus -- 1596 or 1597–1660). Claesz came from Haarlem (not our Harlem) and created his masterpieces in the early 1600s. The creations of course were not food -- they would not have lasted to this day. Instead, they are still life paintings of food -- some of the best ever rendered. Claesz mastered a technique called "monochrome table-top still lifes," and the National Gallery of Art presents 25 of them from nearly 40 years of his life, full of mincemeat pies, meat, breads, lemons, olives, nuts, and wine. Of late, a number of movies have tried to convey the beauty of food and cooking. Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (and its New World interpretation Tortilla Soup), Like Water for Chocolate, and Chocolat use family drama to frame beautiful food in moving images. Big Night and Dinner Rush use the drama of restaurants, with more action (and less food). Only occasionally has a movie captured the drama of food itself: Babette's Feast may be the best example, though, alas, the food preparation is short-lived, while the beauty of the food manifests itself less in food shots than in the smiles, toasts, and songs of the uplifted diners. (For a discussion about the making of Tortilla Soup, see Super Chef, pp. 158-162.) Nevertheless, those are moving pictures: where is the excitement of food these days in a still life painting -- especially from four centuries ago? Superchefblog met with Curator Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. at the National Gallery to hear his explanation. Claesz remains exciting today, says Dr. Wheelock, because he manages to capture plays of light and textures, layered with symbolism. He is a painter's painter (a chef's chef). Dr. Wheelock divides Claesz's work into three periods. Early paintings (1620-1630) were largely imitations of the still lifes of the time, displaying food, tableware, and drinking and smoking utensils. Some could be quite elaborate: there is a Tabletop still life with patridge and Delftware jug (1626), illustrated below, very similar to the "Caille en Sarcophage" in Babette's Feast, which betrays Babette as the head (woman) chef from the Cafe Anglais.: Claesz's signature developed in a middle period (1630-1640) of more natural arrangements, featuring fewer objects -- often including food leftovers -- displayed in monochrome. This minimalism better focuses the viewer on objects and their meaning -- a restraint comparable to the avoidance of butter and rich sauces of Haute Cuisine in favor of simpler sauces and preparations which highlight ingredients that are hallmarks of Nouvelle Cuisine. Illustrated below is Still Life with Pewter Pitcher, Mince Pie, and Almanac (1630), which reveals much of the monochrome Claesz: In his late period (1640-1660) Claesz's minimalism gave over to more objects and color again, more lavishness. Depicted below is one of Claesz's lighter moments, a bit less colorful than others of the same period, but equally if not more lavish with the number of objects portrayed and the liveliness of their interplay. In Fish still life with cat, fish, wooden barrel, and Bartmannkrug (1656), a pussy cat has pounced onto a table piled with seafood and chomps warily on an eel while eyeing a fish that seems to be still flipping about. Painted less than half a decade before he died, the old painter seems to relish the moment perhaps even more than the cat: There are some elements to Claesz's style that remain throughout. His still lifes often include a partially peeled lemon, allowing the artist to display his talent with texture, color, and light as the lemon balances on the front edge of a table, a curling peel trailing over. Or he displays a pewter dish balanced on its edge, filled with fresh shucked oysters, giving the sense that the paintings are part of the room and inviting the viewer into the scene to share the sumptuous dishes. Still, Dr. Wheelock clearly admires Claesz's middle, monochrome period best. By limiting the color palette, Claesz achieves many victories at once. Monochrome creates an atmosphere of light itself -- just as, say, a blue light or sepia lens is often used in film to create emotion. Suddenly, all the objects share many colors, even if bread and lemon and pewter pitcher and glass cup share far fewer colors in white light. In such light and with far fewer objects in sight, the viewer must consider more carefully the objects themselves and what they mean. And here themes of Vanitas and Memento Mori come through -- not our taste today, but for a 17th Century religious society aflush with wealth, reminders of the fleeting beauty of this world. Claesz was not always mindful of his Ps and Qs, and there are many fun elements to the exhibit. Colors can often be intoxicating. Objects are often mesmerizing, at once for their beauty as well as for their antiquity. In particular, Dr. Wheelock and team have assembled many of the objects actually appearing in the paintings. The National Gallery of Art has cases of glasses and metal jugs, clay pipes and straw matches -- right under their matching paintings. Is Dr. Wheelock making his own subtle point here? Don't the objects painted by Claesz seem more beautiful, more lusterous, richer than the realities they reflect? Further still, are not objects and paintings alike but fleeting vanities, all? Foodies will rejoice in the Cooking in Claesz, as the exhibit's handsome, accompanying catalog book seems determined to prove: With a keen sensibility, he created works of unrivalled harmony with a minimum of objects -- often just a single glass and some olives or a lemon on a pewter plate. He achieved painterly poetry in the subtle structure and the refined rhythm of shapes and colors, and the concentration and reasoned economy of means brought to bear in his paintings afford them an unprecedented purity. Great moments in art occur when disipline merges with emotional and pictorial intelligence, and Claesz flawlessly created such moments.(p. 5) Did the catalog's authors have Cooking in mind as they wrote, or are the two art forms so close? -- Read the same passage, with slight changes: With a keen sensibility, he created works of unrivalled harmony with a minimum of ingredients -- often just a single glass and some olives or a lemon on a pewter plate. He achieved culinary poetry in the subtle structure and the refined rhythm of shapes and colors, and the concentration and reasoned economy of means brought to bear in his dishes afford them an unprecedented purity. Great moments in art occur when disipline merges with emotional and culinary intelligence, and Claesz flawlessly created such moments. (p. 5) With just four words changed, it becomes clear how very close Painting and Cooking are as forms of Art. If you're thinking of making a special trip for the exhibit, you might want to take in Dr. Wheelock's 2:00 p.m. lecture "The Still Lifes of Pieter Clausz: Visual Feasts That Delight the Eye and Whet the Appetite," followed by food historian Peter G. Rose and "Food in Pieter Claesz's Paintings: Reflections of Reality," in the East Building Auditorium on Sunday, November 27. If you can't make it to Washington to see the exhibit (which continues through December 31, 2005), you can always give someone the catalog book for the holidays: it makes a great change for someone that usually gets cookbooks. Exhibit details: National Gallery of Art November 27 lectures on Pieter Clausz Book details: Publisher Amazon.com Press release: National Gallery of Art Related articles: New York Times Washington Post Washington Times Previous articles: Food in Painting: Kenneth Bendiner [complete Cookbook Reviews] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, Art, National Gallery of Art, exhibit, still life, Dutch, Netherlands, Holland, Pieter Claesz --> back to superchefblog