ROROTOKO: Discomfort Food

Marni Reva Kessler: Although I didn’t know it at the time, this book took root during a visit years ago to the National Gallery of Art when I happened upon Antoine Vollon’s Mound of Butter.

An intricate and provocative journey through nineteenth-century depictions of food and the often uncomfortable feelings they evokeMarni Reva Kessler: Although I didn’t know it at the time, this book took root during a visit years ago to the National Gallery of Art when I happened upon Antoine Vollon’s Mound of Butter.  I was swept in, of course, by the subject and dazzled by the sumptuous licks of paint that somehow combine to deliver the essence of butter. I imagined the artist’s hand whipping dense cushions of pigment into this luminous mound, his gestures carrying an echo of the act of smoothing butter upon a slice of freshly baked bread. But even as I reveled in this painting’s radiance, I also sensed the stir of disquiet.

Article at ROROTOKO.