MA Graphic Communication Design (Progress)
Iteration 1.
Starting out I focused on using basic parametric shapes and deformers to approximate the form of a Silé na Gig. This was a slow and painstaking process, but not altogether unintuitive. I was pleased with my the results, which provided me with a solid template to iterate upon moving forwards.
For my Methods of Iteration Project, I have chosen to explore digital sculpting using 3D software. Primarily using Cinema 4D, I plan to take a traditional iterative approach with a focus on improving my making skills and learning a new process by repetition.
Over a series of iterations I hope to produce a digital 3D rendering of a Silé na Gig. Though present in a variety of cultures, these carvings are closely associated with Ireland where they are often found over the doorways of ancient churches and other such buildings. Suggested meanings ascribed to Silé na Gig range from protection against evil spirits to fertility totems. In recent years, the carvings have seen a resurgence in the island’s cultural conscious as an emblem associated with Irish feminism.
I recreating this poem, I am drawn to the contrast between the ancient dimensions of my chosen subject and the throughly modern method by which I am interpreting it.
1 – Available at http://www.jameskitto.co.uk/photo_1827786.html (Accessed: 17 January 2021).
2- Available at http://tripfreakz.com/offthebeatenpath/sile-na-gig-sheela-ireland (Accessed: 17 Jan 2021).
3 -Available athttps://parabola.org/2020/01/21/sheela-na-gig/ (Accessed: 17 Jan 2021)
Entering my final tutorial, I chose to focus on the questions of value that surround food, food imagery, and contemporary culinary culture. I felt I had reached a satisfactory point in my visual research and was pleased with the questions and reflections that my work was evoking.
Abbie provided positive feedback on my work. She suggested that I could finish with the project as it stands and spend my remaining time further examining its themes through writing. She proposed that I look further into ideas of cultural capital and perhaps experiment with the formal qualities of my designs by translating them back into oil paintings if I wished. Ling spoke of the cultural differences at play in the myriad ways we relate to food across the world, and it was suggested that I look further into the often unethical global supply chains that make stylized food photography possible. These, of course, being the descendants of the colonial supply chains that filled the dinner table of many wealthy Dutch merchants in the 17th century.
Devon also suggested focusing specifically on organic food and health as prime signifiers of status, which could be a valuable subcategory around which to focalize future iterations of the project. Soojin and Aishwarya also raised interesting questions around the role that money plays in foodie culture, and around the wastage inherent in food photoshoots.
On Symbolism and the Instagram Still Life.
Researching the history of food and its use in still life paintings, one gathers a sense of the rich symbolism on display throughout the genre. This is particularly evident in 17th-century works emanating from what has come to be labelled as the Dutch Golden Age. During this time of great wealth and prosperity, rich compositions were assembled using a veritable cornucopia of luxury foodstuffs. Indeed, these works were often constructed as memento mori with many displaying great opulence suffused with symbols surrounding death and decay. In particular, compositions featuring game, shellfish, and other meats are often read as a sign of wealth with the inevitable rot of such flesh warning of temptation and gluttony. Amongst the great variety of fruits and vegetables skillfully depicted across countless canvases, myriad symbolic meanings have been prescribed. These include:
Apples – Temptation / Knowledge.
Grapes – Pleasure / Lust.
Peaches – The Heart / Good Health.
Pomegranates – Spring / Fertility.
Lemons – Wealth.
Shellfish – Birth / Good Fortune.
Asparagus – Luxury / Prosperity / Virility.
The preoccupations apparent in such works can provide a valid framework for understanding the current day analogue to still life painting, that of stylized instagram-ready food photography. Themes of status and mortality continue to inform our depictions of food, although the overt symbolic emphasis on death has been somewhat sublimated to a more personal focus on health and longevity. Indeed, whilst a lemon may have alluded to financial wealth and prosperity in 17th-century Holland, the average contemporary food blogger is probably more concerned with its antioxidant properties.
This is not to say that notions of prestige are not inherent in contemporary visual food culture, though they are usually understood via formal signifiers that share more in common with Cézanne’s bold brushstrokes than the overtly symbolic compositions of the 17th-century. In the era of (Western) abundance, status-as-linked-to-diet is often conveyed in terms of natural lighting, organic-seeming yet thoughtfully composed compositions (shot from overhead of course), and artisanal dishware. In translating still lifes to such a format, particularly those suffused with dense symbology, the high formalism of our age becomes readily apparent.
In the end, perhaps such analysis gives too much weight to the symbolic content of still life painting. Such extravagant pieces were, first and foremost, objects of great value created for invariably wealthy patrons, and now continue to be traded amongst the same clique. As John Berger (1972) points out, paintings “often depict things. Things which in reality are buyable” and that oil painting “reduced everything to the equality of objects”. In reality, the foodstuffs depicted via modern or storied means are subsumed by artifact and may represent nothing more than a mirror to our own vanities. Julia Fior, writing of the early masters, stresses this point of view saying,
“Far from examining some distant phenomenon, 17th-century Dutch still lifes offer an uncanny perspective on our own times, in which globalism and consumer culture seem to be reaching a peak, once again in tandem with one another. What are the true social costs of today’s most sought-after items, and why do people love to show them off?”
The same could be asked of our fetishization of food as aesthetic, particularly in times of climate change and increasing global food shortage. Indeed by recasting painterly still lifes as Instagram-ready food portraits, perhaps very little gets lost in translation after all.
Bibliography:
Berger, J. (1972, pp 83-87). Ways of seeing. London: Penguin.
Flore, J. (2018) In Dutch Still Lifes, Dark Secrets Hide behind Exotic Delicacies. Available at: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-dutch-lifes-dark-secrets-hide-exotic-delicacies (Accessed: 16/11/2021).
Snow, E. (2021). 10 Common Symbols in Still-Life Paintings & What They Mean. Available at: https://www.thecollector.com/still-life-paintings-what-they-mean/ (Accessed: 16 November 2021).
Following this weeks tutorial, I have decided to focus further on translating from still life to contemporary food photography. Each image is created using a collage of images from across the web.
Paul Cézanne – The Basket of Apples. (1893)
Paul Cézanne – The Basket of Apples. (2021)
Juan Sánchez Cotán – Still Life with Game, Vegetables and Fruit. (1602)
Juan Sánchez Cotán – Still Life with Game, Vegetables and Fruit. (2021)
Willem Claesz Heda – Banquet Piece with Mince Pie. (1635)
Willem Claesz Heda – Banquet Piece with Mince Pie. (2021)
Translating from a Painting to a…
Instagram-ready Photograph / Magazine Article / Collage.
Paul Cézanne – Still Life with Cherries and Peaches (1885-87), recreated as a digital collage ready for the glossy pages of Bon Appetit.
Translating an Artefact / From a Painting to a Crowd-Sourced Sketch.
Combining my sketches together, a rough outline of the image begins to appear. Such an approach could be extrapolated to a participatory project
Translating a Moment / From Painting to Sketch in 27.2 seconds.
The average person spends 27.2 seconds viewing a piece of art in a gallery. Using this time constraint, what can be captured of a work of art and what can it tell us of the painting’s composition.
Sketching Cézanne’s work with rapidity, the syntax of the painting makes itself known*. I found myself starting always with the jug, and was able to get the most detail completed moving (mostly) left to right from there. Looking at the painting now, I can see that such is the manner in which my eyes trace it naturally.
Translating by Copying. Using the Xerox printer as a tool.