Concerning the spiritual in Spiral Taffy

My thesis documents the body of work I have built since May 2004. This work was the result of an exploration o f the Still Life tradition since the 16th Century. I looked at the unique aspects and historical evolution of the Still Life tradition from the 16,h Century to the present. An examination of the work I have produced since 2004 will show the influence of several stylistic and conceptual movements over the past 500 years, particularly those at the two ends o f that chronology: The early Dutch and Old Master painters and the Pop Artists o f the late 20th Century. Finally, I will review ways in which this body of work incorporates elements which make it personal and spiritual, giving it deeper meaning than it would therwise have by just being an exercise in composition and rendering. I will also show how this phenomenon of incorporating deeper layers of personal, spiritual and even satirical meaning has been a part o f this kind of painting since even before the term "Still Life" was coined. The point at which I discovered the unique capacity of Still Life painting for retaining multiple, simultaneous and sometimes contradictory layers of meaning was when I became particularly excited about its advantageousness as a means of personal expression, given my own interests in social satire, record keeping, and my particular interest in the ways which certain foods facilitate human intimacy, which I think of as a kind of spirituality.

CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL IN SPIRAL TAFFY A Twenty-First Century Exploration of Still Life Painting by Kent David Christensen A final project paper submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts Department of Art and Art History The University of Utah December 2005 Copyright © Kent David Christensen 2005 All Rights Reserved THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE APPROVAL of a final project paper submitted by Kent David Christensen This final paper has been read by each member of the following supervisory committee and by majority vote has been found to be satisfactoiy. // /G/c> S ^ Chairfnan: '^Jx iv lcR ay MSgle&y'" R. D. Wilson THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS FINAL READING APPROVAL I have read the final project paper o f____________ Kent David Christensen_____ in its final form and have found that (1) its format, citations, and bibliographic style are consistent and acceptable; (2) its illustrative materials including figures, tables, and charts are in place; and (3) the final manuscript is satisfactory to the Supervisory Committee and is ready for submission to the Graduate School. ; V ' v * ^Jckay Chairperson, Supervisory ComgMUee Approved for the Major Department . Elizabeth A. Peterson Chairperson Approved for the Graduate Council THESIS ABSTRACT CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL IN SPIRAL TAFFY r A Twenty-First Century Exploration of Still Life Painting My thesis documents the body of work I have built since May 2004. This work was the result of an exploration of the Still Life tradition since the 16th Century. I looked at the unique aspects and historical evolution of the Still Life tradition from the 16,h Century to the present. An examination of the work I have produced since 2004 will show the influence of several stylistic and conceptual movements over the past 500 years, particularly those at the two ends of that chronology: The early Dutch and Old Master painters and the Pop Artists of the late 20th Century. Finally, I will review ways in which this body of work incorporates elements which make it personal and spiritual, giving it deeper meaning than it would otherwise have by just being an exercise in composition and rendering. I will also show how this phenomenon of incorporating deeper layers of personal, spiritual and even satirical meaning has been a part of this kind of painting since even before the term "Still Life" was coined. The point at which I discovered the unique capacity of Still Life painting for retaining multiple, simultaneous and sometimes contradictory layers of meaning was when I became particularly excited about its advantageousness as a means of personal expression, given my own interests in social satire, record keeping, and my particular interest in the ways which certain foods facilitate human intimacy, which I think of as a kind of spirituality. Spirituality is often a communal phenomenon, and our love of certain foods is many times an association with people, place and time. Personal spirituality is often experienced by means of our intimate associations with others. Those moments are sometimes marked by the consumption of some sort of food - in the case of my (Mormon) culture, that food is usually some kind of sugar. This body of work also touches on the perplexing and humorous ironies and contradictions of two cultures, one within the other: The Mormon cultural obsession with sugar (given the strictness with which we adhere to our own peculiar code of health) and the greater cultural phenomenon of an American population that is at once both obsessively health conscious and notoriously over nourished. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT v LIST OF FIGURES ' vii "CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL IN SPIRAL TAFFY: A Twenty-First Century Exploration of Still Life Painting" -1 Mormon Heroin 1 1 500 Years of Still Life Painting 2 The Praise of Folly 6 Pop Art 9 The Spiral Taffy - \ • 9 The 2005 Food Pyramid 11 Re-contextualizing with Technology 13 A Record of Intimacy 17 Concerning the Spiritual.... 18 REFERENCES 24 BIBLIOGRAPHY 25 LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. "The Seven Deadly Sins and Four Last Things" 4 2. "The Peasant Wedding Banquet" 4 3. "The Land of Cockaigne" 5 4. "The Praise of Pancakes" 7 5. "Basket of Fruit" 8 6. "Spiral Taffy Triptych" 10 7. "The 2005 Food Pyramid" 13 8. The Salt Lake Tribune, April 27, 2005 14 9. "The Spiral Taffy" 15 10. ‘The Ambassadors" 16 11. "Rodin's Kiss" 16 12. "Eight Wrapped Caramels" 20 13. "Seven Naked Caramels" 20 14. ‘The Twelve Pistachios" 21 15. "The Green Jell-O" 21 16. "Ribbon Candy in a Glass Vase" 22 17. "Ribbon Candy" 22 18. "Black Caramels on a Cheese Board" 23 19. "The Naked Kiss" 23 CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL IN SPIRAL TAFFY A Twenty-First Century Exploration of Still Life Painting Mormon Heroin My study of Still Life was actually first the result of a decision to paint food, and not just any food. Several years ago, after regularly indulging in various forms of sugar and chocolate in the company of friends at various establishments in New York (they took part in the more conventional vices of beer, wine and cigarettes) one of them observed, triumphantly: ‘I've figured you out! Sugar is the Mormon heroin!' I began the Graduate program here at the U two years ago and would make regular trips back to New York, always returning with some form of "Mormon heroin", and have spent many happy hours indulging with my colleagues in the Art Department. (After all, like most vices, chocolate, cannolis and French macaroons taste their best in good company.) One day, over a box of Jacques Torres from Brooklyn, Sam Wilson said: "Hey, this stuffs kind of pretty - you should paint it!" And the first of a series of light bulbs went off in my head. So in the middle of 2004 I embarked on an exploration of the various traditions of Still Life painting. I was drawn in particular to two different art historical movements, the Early Dutch Still Life painters of the 16th, and the Pop Art painters of the 20th centuries. Elements of both periods are present in my work. For example, many of the small paintings I've done have been executed in a traditional way, with many layers of glaze built up on the canvases or panels, but the way the subjects have been composed has a modem, pop art quality, such as: organizing things in circles or grids and stacking or lining up objects in rows. 500 Years of Still Life Painting Starting with the 20th Century, I looked at many examples of Still Life Painting. My exploration took me back and forth over the preceding five hundred years. Here is a sampling of painters whose works I have studied: Janet Fish, a contemporary painter of Still Life, is well known for her rendering of glass, intense color and depictions of how light penetrates an object. Wayne Thiebaud is surely the most well-known still life painter of dessert in the mid to late 20th Century. His gooey desserts, arrayed in sometimes endless patterns, send a double message that has been a hallmark of the Still Life tradition for centuries: They both glorify and entice as they satirize and ridicule crass American Taste and mass production. It should also come as no surprise to anyone (given his obvious familiarity with a wide variety of dessert items) that Wayne Thiebaud grew up in a Mormon home. His father even served as Bishop of their ward in Arizona.1 Roy Lichtenstein made Still Life paintings unlike any seen before. In the early 20th Century art went through monumental stylistic and philosophical change and the very definition of what art is and can do broadened and deepened, enabling artists like Lichtenstein to create new and distinctive works. Andy Warhol boiled Still Life down to its essence with his minimal Still Life Pop Art paintings such as his "Campbell's Tomato Soup Can" and my personal favorite, the "Tunafish Disaster" series of prints. Elizabeth Murray, another contemporary painter, broke the boundaries of the traditional rectilinear canvas in her explosive Still Life constructions. Will Cotton, an even more contemporary painter, is of particular interest to me, given his sugary theme. Walton Ford is not primarily a Still Life painter, but his work has had an impact on mine because of his use of a traditional form (Audubon Prints) in the employment of social satire. Going back more than 500 years to the year 1485, Hieronymus Bosch's painting "The Seven Deadly Sins and Four Last Things" (See Figure 1) depicted a scene that was more fantasy than anything else. Food was simply not in abundance and the risk of gluttony was not great. Painters like Pieter Aertsen, in his market scenes of the 1550's and 60's, used the same head of cabbage multiple times and duplicated other objects into massive Still Life compositions that spoke more about a fantasy world than a reality in which famine and disease were commonplace. Painters of this era were creating an ideal that didn't really exist yet - that of BOUNTY.2 Aertsen's paintings like "Kitchen Scene"(1556) and "The Egg Dance", (which also occurs in a kitchen) are good examples of how the artist chose to emphasize the special occasion, the feast times, in order to provide a distraction from grim reality. There are elements of Still Life in all of these works, from the objects set randomly on the table to the floor strewn with vegetables, eggs, shoes, a sword, etc. Interestingly, the term "Still Life" wouldn't come into use for another hundred years. The first mention of it was recorded in 1650.3 Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525-1569), in his well-known depiction of "The Peasant Wedding Banquet" (fig. 2) pushes a lot of buttons for me. It portrays an intimate, communal moment in which special food is shared after the sacrament of Marriage has 4 Figure 1. Hieronymus Bosch, "The Seven Deadly Sins and Four Last Things" (1485) Figure 2. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, "The Peasant Wedding Banquet" (1568) been observed. We all recognize the way in which food, and special food in particular, enhances and provides a touchstone for the human experience in both a physical and spiritual sense. Commemorating an event and providing an intimate sacramental marker for the human experience are two of the functions of food depiction that most intrigue me. Bruegel also made paintings of parables, like his "The Parable of the Blind" (1568). For me, this is where it starts getting really interesting. The satirical, storytelling component is something I'm drawn to in my own work. In his ‘The Land of Cockaigne" (fig. 3), Bruegel depicts a legendary place of gluttonous delight. Cockaigne represents a utopia for those who want to eat endlessly 5 Figure 3. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, "The Land of Cockaigne" (1567) Alte Pinakothek, Munich. and without care. A thirteenth century French poem describes Cockaigne as "paved with pastries and its houses made of edibles" - rather like the witch's cottage in the tale of Hansel and Gretel.4 Plump men lie in a food-induced stupor on the ground. Each represents a different social class (knight, peasant and burger). They are blissfully paralyzed beneath the remains of their feasting. The shingles on the nearby cottage are actually pies waiting for the next round of gorging. Art historians have usually interpreted this painting, like others of its kind, as moral condemnation and simple satirizing of human stupidity. But, as in most of Bruegel's paintings, there is a sophisticated, double edge to the way he portrays the scene as inviting. There is nothing perilous or threatening, and there is a kind of dreamy contentment and calm that we experience in our own culture, say, watching football as Thanksgiving dinner settles enough to make room for pumpkin pie. The Praise of Folly Fifty years earlier, in 1509, the philosopher Erasmus of Rotterdam (c.1466 - 1536) had written his most famous work, ‘The Praise of Folly". A kind of sophisticated spin-off of the artistic genre "Memento Mori", which is based on the ancient Latin phrase that may be translated as "Remember that you are mortal" or "Remember your death" (literally "remember mortality") Erasmus created a rhetorical device designed to seduce the reader into empathizing with persons or things they would normally shun. He would entangle the reader in the folly he praised in order to make them aware of their own failings. Modern readers will recognize the continuation of this rhetorical device in writings such as C. S. Lewis' (1898-1963) "The Screwtape Letters" (1942). 6 Erasmus' "Praise of Folly" was a seminal work that actually helped inform and drive the Protestant Reformation. By the time Pieter Bruegel and Pieter Aertsen were at the peak of their careers painting their market scenes, ‘The Parable of the Blind" and "Land of Cockaigne" painters had adapted Erasmus' rhetorical device into a visual device. This visual device drove painting in new directions and Still Life, in particular, benefited greatly. Pieter Aertsen's glorious "Praise of Pancakes" (fig. 4) pays indirect homage to Erasmus with its tongue-in-cheek exaltation of lowly pancakes, waffles and crepes. The simple market scene was transformed into a multi-layered work of both technical craft and intellectual depth. By the turn of the Seventeenth Century, Caravaggio had taken Still Life to levels not seen before, and some would argue, not since. His "Basket of Fruit" (fig. 5) is considered by many to be the great Still Life masterpiece. It employs all the parallel and 7 Figure 4. Pieter Aertsen, "The Praise of Pancakes" 8 Figure 5. Caravaggio, "Basket of Fruit" (1600) Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan. contrasting devices of Erasmus' "Praise of Folly" and the earlier "Memento Mori" tradition. It's beautifully painted, placed precariously on a ledge so as to almost beg you to stand waiting to catch it - and then you notice the worm-eaten fruit and dried out leaves. Without giving too much away, there is a large dose of Erasmus of Rotterdam in my work. I suppose you could call it a "Praise of Mormon Folly". The curious misalignment of a strictly Puritanical adherence to the Mormon health code on the one hand and the openly flagrant consumption of all things sugar on the other provide a perfect vehicle for both celebrating and satirizing my own people. Unlike Erasmus, however, I am not interested in making moral judgments or in aiding a fresh Reformation. It is simply an interesting, engaging and hopefully enlightening way for me to examine some of the intrinsic humor and irony of this eccentric and peculiar culture. Since satire cannot be explicated, I will simply leave it at that. Pop Art Artists have been appropriating ideas and techniques from other artists for centuries. One of the great things about art in general and Pop Art in particular is its ability to take on and synergistically re-combine not only previous ideas and techniques but also multiple and complex layers of meaning. The point at which I discovered the unique capacity of Still Life painting for retaining multiple, simultaneous and sometimes contradictory layers of meaning was when I became excited about its advantageousness as a means of personal expression, given my own interests in social satire, record keeping, and my particular interest in the ways which certain foods facilitate human intimacy. I especially love High Art's ability to combine and align unlikely partners to meet its objective of engagement. Earlier this year I had one of those moments when my creative planets became momentarily aligned. Thankfully, I was paying attention. The Spiral Taffy I was sitting in my graduate studio upstairs, looking out at one of those stunning Utah sunsets, the bright orange sliver of the Lake framing the State Capitol. Taking a break from my painting to unwrap the wax paper from a piece of taffy with a spiral on it, (and here is some evidence of just how high you can get off of sugar) the idea to paint the Spiral Jetty - with pieces of spiral taffy instead of the Jetty's rocks - provided me with one of those moments artists live for: when layers of meaning combine to create compelling imagery full of deeply personal artistic and spiritual significance (fig.6). I grew up in Southern California, and Salt Water Taffy became associated with Salt Lake City because that is where I first saw it. I remember walking down Main Street between sessions of General Conference in the 60's and being fascinated by the taffy machines twisting away in several storefront windows. I honestly thought (at age 8 orlO) that salt-water taffy was a product of the Great Salt Lake. Can you imagine? The 10 Figure 6. "Spiral Taffy Triptych" (2005) oil on linen, 46 x 32 in. other significant thing has to do with the Spiral Jetty itself, and the fact that it was built in the area where many of my ancestors first settled after immigrating to America. The Spiral Taffy paintings pay homage both to Robert Smithson and to my 19th Century Pioneer ancestors who lived within view of the lake's northern shore. Like many people do with art, I have adopted the Spiral Jetty to serve my own purposes. As an artist, I love the fact that the art work that, more than any other, puts Utah on the world art map happens to be located in the same desolate corner of the world in which my people created something new in a place completely alien to them. The 2005 Food Pyramid Another element of Pop Art that intrigues me and which I've employed in my work is the way in which so much of it is driven or inspired by current events. The 2005 Food Pyramid was partly current-events driven and partly just something I've wanted to do for a long time. Just after I moved to New York in 1988 I became acquainted with a woman by the name of Isabel Dufresne (a.k.a. Ultra Violet), a member of Andy Warhol's famous Factory. She had converted to Mormonism several years earlier and invited me over to see some of her recent work (and some of her Warhol's as well). While her work was interesting, what I remember most from that visit was that she had placed on her refrigerator - side by side - copies of the Word of Wisdom, which is the LDS health code, and the U.S. Dept, of Agriculture's Food Pyramid. Seen in that context, not on the side of a cereal box or in the newspaper, the Pyramid cried out "Pop Art Icon" to me, and seen along side the block text of the Word of Wisdom only enhanced that impression. The Pyramid. The triangle. The great Icon of Art History. Someday I knew I would do something with that thing. 11 That day came earlier this year, when, once again, up in my third floor studio, I was listening to the morning NPR broadcast which heralded a new and improved USDA Food Pyramid which, according to the USDA would save our over-nourished yet chronically unhealthy nation from a host of obesity related illnesses and woes. I could hardly WAIT to see it. I ran over to the Library and picked up a copy of the New York Times, only to be disappointed by a lame looking redesigned food pyramid. I knew it was time for me to address my frustration with not only the look of the new pyramid but the bizarre misalignment of health-consciousness versus the reality of unhealthy diet that afflicts this country. On a personal aesthetic level, "The 2005 Food Pyramid", (fig. 7) with its compartments of varying size hints at my fondness for advent calendars, diagrams and lists. I think of it, in my journal-keeping mind, as a record of significant or favorite culinary experiences throughout the year. More significantly, the USDA's Food Pyramid is the stuff that humor-based art is made of. It became an easy target for me to appropriate as social and political satire, and for making a statement about my distaste for the overly didactic - especially the tendency toward literalism - in art. There is another funny story about the second way in which the Food Pyramid was current-events driven. April 27, 2005.1 went over to the Business School that morning, as I often do, to pick up a copy of the New York Times to read with my morning hot chocolate and I think I stopped breathing for a minute when I glanced over at the Salt Lake Tribune. I had been wondering what to put at the top of my food pyramid. There it was. Twinkies! Even though I am fully aware of the disproportionate importance of sugar in a place like Utah, I was completely stunned at the sight of Hostess 13 Figure 7. "The 2005 Food Pyramid" (2005) oil on sixteen panels, 12 x 12 x 12 ft. Twinkies right there at the top of the front page, nestled between the letters of the masthead.5 To my further astonishment, horror and delight, the entire food section was filled with Twinkie-stuff, commemorating its 75th birthday. There was (again, not surprisingly) a recipe for Twinkie wedding cake and even Twinkie-misu. (fig. 8) Re-contextualizing with Technology As I sought for ways of personalizing this work I became captivated by the re-contextualizing process of taking historical elements from the still life tradition and updating them with modern technology, then incorporating them back into the work by means of traditional painting techniques. There are two examples of this process in this body of work. 14 U t a h ' s I n d e p e n d e n t V o i c e S i n c e 1 8 7 1 k t Halt jtnkr W e d n e s d a y ❖ A p r il 2 7 , 2 0 0 5 iBEST LACES Happy birthday F 143 ber of children n foster care system ly point in time Food & Garden Foster care in Utah 20 3 This month, the Twinkie - the little cream-filled, yellow spongecake - celebrates its 75th birthday, D1 Average number of months foster chikfreri wail to be adopted Average number of homes a foster child will see before finding a permanent home 12 Percent of children who re enter foster care after failed adoptions Postering hope for a home Sy tr< Figure 8. The Salt Lake Tribune, April 27, 2005. In ‘The Spiral Taffy" (fig. 9) I wanted to make a more specific reference to Robert Smithson, builder of the Spiral Jetty, without having that reference compete with the simple image of the Jetty. I decided to lay an oblique, elongated portrait of Smithson into the shoreline of the painting. My inspiration to do this was Hans Holbein's painting "The Ambassadors" (fig. 10), which includes a mysterious log-like shape at the bottom of the large painting. When viewed from a particular angle the log is optically transformed into a skull. Painters like Holbein used a time-consuming grid transformation process to achieve this effect. I used the latest version of Photoshop on my computer to make the transformation, but executed the image on the canvas in much the same way as Holbein. In "Rodin's Kiss" (fig. 11)1 used the same process to execute a double portrait without detracting from the simple triangular shape of the foil-wrapped Hershey's Kiss, which dominates the canvas. The hidden, distorted image of Auguste Rodin's famous marble sculpture "The Kiss" appears only when viewed at an oblique angle, and until that time, the mysterious shape below the foil-wrapped kiss (is it smoke? Is it a mysterious fluid? Is it a reflection?) lends an air of uncertainty and even danger to the work. 15 Figure 9. ‘The Spiral Taffy" (2005) oil on linen, 68 x 48 in. 16 Figure 10. Hans Holbein "The Ambassadors", oil on wood (1533) The National Gallery, London. Figure 11. "Rodin's Kiss" (2005) oil on linen, 26 x 24 in. A Record of Intimacy I like to think of my work as both a yearning for and homage to human intimacy - the intimacy that for centuries has been captured in the Still Life tradition. We yearn for intimacy because it is not as much a part of our lives as it once was and we miss it, usually without even knowing it. My work has also always without question been about the very intimate and personal act of record keeping. I started keeping a detailed journal at age 16. Within five years the written word was eclipsed and accompanied by a visual record - drawings predominated and journals became sketchbooks. More than thirty years have passed since I started thinking in terms of making some record of my life every day, and this particular body of work ties in with my almost instinctive need to do that. Each one of the paintings in the show has a very specific story behind it. (See Figures 12-19.) That is the thing about food in paintings - it is always really about people and inter-personal relationships. Someone makes the food. Someone eats it. Both of these things happen in special places and at special times. The sharing of special (and sometimes not so special) foods is a universal theme in all cultures and traditions. Tradition itself is in many ways kept alive by means of the most vivid of the senses: taste and smell. In these paintings and drawings I tried to focus on my fondness for small, everyday traditions, like breakfast or a late night stop at a favorite cafe. They are perhaps less memorable than the big ones like Thanksgiving and they are unfortunately not a part of our cultural routine, but they can be if we choose to let them. Even back in the seventeenth century, these little still life paintings were referred to as "Kitchen Pieces" and were used as reminders of intimate moments. A seventeenth century survey of Dutch 17 art collections showed food paintings hanging all over Dutch homes - in virtually every room, corridor and entrance way.6 Different things were happening in the world and in my life while I executed each of the works in the show, and for me, they also evoke those moments. It is as if, along with the record I made of each object, the works take on other spontaneous layers of meaning that are life-like in their randomness and in their being completely beyond my control. That is probably the most amazing thing I discovered in my exploration of Still Life painting. I always knew it was really about the intimacy of people coming together over food, but I just never knew how rich, intimate, and deeply personal the added experience of painting them would be until I did so. Concerning the Spiritual.... I not only borrowed from Kandinsky's "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" for use as my thesis title, I also like what he says about the intrinsic spiritual or mystical power of certain shapes, especially the triangle. Kandinsky was the first I know of to articulate this belief in the mystical power of shapes, and I like how his beliefs also included a kind of reverence for the role of artists as a group. He said: "Every person who steeps himself in the spiritual possibilities of his art is a valuable helper in the building of the spiritual pyramid which will some day reach to heaven."71 like the multi-dimensional way in which he values "spirituality". He believed in the spiritual power of artists, in the intrinsic spiritual or mystical power of imagery and color if it was employed well, and in the essential spiritual belief that substance is more important than form. His kind of spirituality valued the internal over the external, the spirit over the body, the heart over the outward appearance, the "what" over the "how". In the larger context of his beliefs 18 the outward appearance, the "what" over the "how". In the larger context of his beliefs about the spiritual in art (and in life) I can imagine he would have said, "Form is Folly". In this way, I have derived a great deal of inspiration from his writing. I have tried to keep my work grounded in substance and meaning. The 1986 Danish film "Babette's Feast"8 is a favorite of mine. It is a story about edible art and the sensuality of food. It is also about sacrifice, ritual and the community of the human spirit. To me, it is especially a story about creativity in the face of pietism. The struggle between Babette's genuine but "outsider" hospitality and generosity and the carefully measured defensiveness and fear of the stern, puritanical Danes she tries to serve is familiar to anyone who has tried to bridge cultural or religious divides. In the end, love and intimacy are triumphant. Babette's sacrifice and creativity are rewarded, but at great personal cost. In an attempt to ease her friend's worries about the poverty she has brought upon herself as the result of her generosity, she speaks my favorite line from the film: "An artist is never poor." The fictional Babette and the actual Still Life painters of food through the centuries have provided me with a wealth of inspiration and a desire to continue to prepare my own personal "feast" of paintings about the rich intimacy and symbolic power of food in art. 19 20 Figure 13. "Seven Naked Caramels" (2005) oil on linen, 12 x 12 in. 21 Figure 14. "The Twelve Pistachios" (2005) oil on panel, 12 x 24 in. Figure 15. "The Green Jell-O" (2005) oil on linen, 14 x 12 in. 22 Figure 17. "Ribbon Candy" (2005) oil on panel, 12 x 16 in. 23 Figure 18. "Black Caramels on a Cheese Board" (2005) oil on linen, 18 x 16 in. Figure 19. "The Naked Kiss" (2005) oil on linen, 12 x 10 in. 24 References 1 Steven A. Nash with Adam Gopnik, Wayne Thiebaud, A Paintings Retrospective, p. 191. 2 Anne W. Lowenthal, ed., The Object as Subject, pp. 14-18. 3 Ibid., p. 6. 4 On the Land of Cockaigne tale, which goes back to Lucian's True History of the second century AD and is described in Dante's Divine Comedy and various thirteenth- and fourteenth-century poems from France, England and the Netherlands, see V. Vaananen, ‘Le "fabliau" de Cockagne', Neuphilologische Mitteiiungen, XLVIII (1947), pp. 3-36, and Herman Pleij, Dreaming of Cockaigne: Medieval Fantasies of the Perfect Life (New York, 2001). 5 The Salt Lake Tribune, April 27, 2005. 6 Kenneth Bendiner, Food In Painting, From the Renaissance to the Present, p. 29. 7 Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, p. 20. 8 Babette's Feast, Director/Writer: Gabriel Axel, Denmark, 1987. Based on the short story by Isak Dinesen. Academy Award winner, Best Foreign Language Film. 25 Bibliography Thomas Bendiner, Food In Painting, from the Renaissance to the Present (London, 2004) Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Peasants, Fools and Demons (Koln, Germany, 2004) Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, trans. M. T. H. Sadler (New York, 1977) Anne W. Lowenthal, ed., The Object as Subject (Princeton, NJ, 1996) Steven A. Nash with Adam Gopnik, Wayne Thiebaud, A Paintings Retrospective (New York, 2000)