From 24 January to 14 June 2015 Palazzo Martinengo in Brescia will host the exhibition “Food in art. Masterpieces of the great masters from the seventeenth century to Warhol ", which will present over 100 works by masters of ancient art such as Campi, Baschenis, Ceruti, Figino, Recco, Ruoppolo, Stanchi, who will dialogue with modern and contemporary authors, from Magritte to de Chirico, from Manzoni to Fontana, Lichtenstein, up to Andy Warhol.
Food in art thus offers a further study of the topics covered by Expo 2015, whose theme is "Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life".
Promoted by the Friends of Palazzo Martinengo Association, with the patronage of the Province of Brescia, the Lombardy Region and EXPO 2015, and curated by Davide Dotti assisted by an international scientific committee, the review will lead the public on a long and exciting journey through the different pictorial currents that have followed one another over time - from Baroque to Rococo, from nineteenth-century Romanticism to the avant-garde of the twentieth century - to appreciate the various iconography related to the representation of food that the artists have tackled with flair and originality.
The exhibition itinerary, ordered according to an iconographic and chronological criterion, will reveal how much the painters active between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries loved to paint the typical foods and dishes of their lands of origin, and will reveal dishes and foods that have completely disappeared today of which it is difficult to imagine the flavor too.
Furthermore, thanks to the collaboration with some of the most renowned food science departments of Italian universities, which will scientifically analyze the laid tables and handouts immortalized in the canvases of the 600th and 700th centuries, it will be possible to obtain valuable information on the diet and tastes of the era.
There will be ten thematic sections: The allegory of the five senses, Pantry and kitchen markets, Fruit, Vegetables, Fish and shellfish, Furred and feathered game, Meat, cold cuts and cheeses, Sweets, wine and liqueurs, Laid tables, Food in XNUMXth century art.
The visit will ideally end with the spectacular Food Pyramid, an installation specially created for the occasion by the artist Paola Nizzoli.
Among the masterpieces that can be admired in the exhibition are the Ricotta Eaters by Vincenzo Campi, the Peach Plate by Ambrogio Figino (the first still life in the history of Italian art, painted about five years before Caravaggio's Canestra), the which specialized critics consider to be the most important pendant to still lifes by Giacomo Ceruti known as Pitocchetto (never exhibited in public before), the table with watermelons by the pointillist painter Emilio Longoni and the Last Supper by Andy Warhol, an acrylic on canvas that reinterprets Leonardo's Last Supper in a pop key.
Food in art will offer a rich educational apparatus for all classes of all levels. The Cultural Association Amici di Palazzo Martinengo has studied a series of educational workshops which will be conducted by specialized educational operators. For kindergarten, primary and lower secondary schools, it will be a multisensory experience which consists in the unconventional recognition of tastes, smells, colors and textures of various foods.
Alternatively, the creation of an elaborate simulating and reinterpreting the artist's creative process is foreseen, using the materials made available including pasta, dried fruit, legumes, rice, and more. For the upper secondary school, in addition to the proposals for educational workshops, there are thematic itineraries on display which will allow for an in-depth study of some aspects and themes of the exhibition itinerary, sometimes combined with a shorter practical activity to fix the concepts learned.
In addition, a prize competition has been set up which provides for students to create an artistic work in the classroom, with the aim of bringing children closer to the world of art in an original and innovative way, allowing them to put their creative imagination .
FOOD IN ART
Masterpieces of the great masters from the seventeenth century to Warhol
Brescia, Palazzo Martinengo (via dei Musei 30)
24 January – 14 June 2015
