A FEAST FOR THE EYES

Using food to create art

We´ve all seem art created from paint, clay, metal, and Stone. But British
photographer and artist Carl Warner goes to the supermarket to buy his art supplies.
Carl creates what he calls foodscapes. He combines different types of food to imitate
real landscapes. Then the photographs them. One of his foodscapes, Carts and
Balloons, is a countryside scene. In this foodscape a few leafy green stalks of
broccoli are a forest. A few pieces of bread are used to make a cart. There are some
berries in the cart and some potatoes as rocks. A few yellow corncobs and
cucumbers are the fields. Hot-air Balloons, made from bunches of bananas and
other fruit, float in the sky. Some clouds of white bread float in the sky, too. It might
seem a little weird to create art out of food, but Carl hopes that his work will get
children excited about eating healthy foods.

Combining food and art is not a modern idea. Giuseppe Arcimboldo, a sixteenth-
century Italian painter, also combined different types of food to create original art.
In 1590 the Roman Emperor Rudolf II asked Giuiseppe to paint his portrait. The
result was really unusual! Called Vertumnus, after the Roman god of fruit, the
painting shows a face made of fruit, vegetables, and flowers. Giuiseppe painted one
pea pod for each top eyelid, two baby onions for each bottom eyelid, one grape for
each eye, a pear for the nose, and Apple for one cheek, and a peach for the other.
Can you imagine what the emperor´s face looked like? Luckily the emperor was
happy with this unusual portrait!

Activity
1. Find the words of vocabulary in the reading.

2. After you read, work in pairs to answer the questions:

A. What´s a foodscape?

B. How did Carl create the landscape called Carts and Balloons?

C. Why Does Carl create foodscapes?

D. Who asked Giuseppe Arcimboldo to paint his portrait?

E. Why did Giuseppe call the portrait Vertumnus?

3. Do you think combining food and art is a good idea? Why?