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Food and Shelter

Chapter 5

Learning Objectives

List common symbols used in the genre of still-life paintings.

Describe the role of art-making in ancient societies as it pertains to survival.

Discuss the function and historical and cultural context of significant works of architecture from various cultures.

Describe various representations related to eating and the food supply.

Discuss the ways in which art and ritual are linked.

Explain how food-related rituals can be political.

Distinguish between various architectural styles.

Map 1

Map 1 Prehistoric sites for carvings, rock paintings, or early settlements. This map shows sites in Asia Minor, northern Africa, and southern Europe. Still more sites exist around the world.

Food and Shelter

Art is used to store, serve, and enjoy food.

Structures are built to provide shelter and to enrich lives with their aesthetic designs.

Throughout history, there were structures for group living, as at Çatal Hüyük (Fig. 5.1), and individual homes, each reflecting broad social values, climate contrasts, and historical necessity.

Figure 5.1

5.1 Excavations of ancient houses at Çatal Hüyük, Anatolia, Turkey, 7500–5700 BCE.

Connecting Art and Prehistory

Paleolithic era (Old Stone Age), began c. 30,000 BCE (there is no clear ending to the Old and Middle Stone Ages).

Mesolithic era (Middle Stone Age), 10,000–7000 BCE.

Neolithic era (New Stone Age), c. 8000 BCE.

Paleolithic art

A great majority of Paleolithic art was related to food and shelter.

Later, people produced the first architecture when they built housing from mammoth bones covered with turf and skins.

Figure 5.2 (1 of 2)

5.2 Bison with Turned Head, c. 11,000 BCE. Reindeer antler, 4 1/4" high. Found at La Madeleine, France. Photo by René-Gabriel Ojéda. Musée National de Préhistoire, Les Eyzies-de- Tayac-Sireuil, France.

Figure 5.2 (2 of 2)

This Paleolithic carving was part of a spear thrower.

Carvings like this were often found near the hearth, reinforcing the connection among art, ritual, food, shelter, and procreation.

Mesolithic art

The first experiments in raising crops and animals happened during the Mesolithic era.

Humans continued to live by hunting and gathering, but older practices were intermingled with new.

The African Rock Painting (Fig. 5.3) shows people in hunting and herding scenes.

Figure 5.3

5.3 African Rock Painting, cave painting of Tassili n’Ajjer, 2nd mill. BCE. Henri Lhote Collection. Musée de l’Homme, Paris.

FOOD

Securing the Food Supply

Hunters, gatherers, and early farmers linked art and ritual to accomplishing tasks like bringing rain for crops.

In some cultures, the artist/shaman could attain great societal status by employing ritual (“sympathetic magic”).

The current consensus on the meaning of cave paintings, such as the Hall of Bulls (Fig. 5.4), is that they had a ritual purpose linked to bounty in nature and food supply.

Figure 5.4

5.4 Hall of Bulls, cave painting, left wall, Lascaux, Dordogne, France, c. 15000–10000 BCE. French Government Tourist Office.

Figure 5.5 (1 of 2)

5.5 Paddy Carroll Tjungurrayi. Witchetty Grub Dreaming, Aboriginal, Papunya, Australia, 1980. Paint on canvas.

Figure 5.5 (2 of 2)

In Australia, we see a similar phenomenon that links food, art, and ritual.

Until recently, the Aboriginal people were a Stone Age culture that existed in the 20th century.

The patterns and symbols in this painting are part of the Aboriginal belief system (“Ancestor Dreaming”) of the origin of life and the sustenance of everyday existence.

Figure 5.6 (1 of 2)

5.6 Tyi Wara (or Chi Wara) Dance Headdresses, Bamana (or Bambara) people, Mali. Headdresses are generally made of wood, brass tacks, string, cowrie shells, and iron and are between 32" and 38" high.

Figure 5.6 (2 of 2)

Tyi Wara dancers wear headdresses of the mythical antelopes they believe first gave humans agricultural knowledge.

Plant life (crops), animal life (antelope), and humankind (ancestors) are united in this ritual.

Pattern and rhythm are visual elements in the headdresses, with interwoven negative and positive shapes.

Figure 5.7 (1 of 2)

5.7 Sue Coe. There Is No Escape, Britain, 1987. Watercolor and graphite on paper, 1' 10" × 2' 6".

Figure 5.7 (2 of 2)

Today, few people hunt and process the meat they eat.

Coe’s stark black-and-white work is a critique of contemporary industrial societies’ food industries.

Storing and Serving Food

Over time, there have been many types of vessels to store food, but they all combine utility with aesthetics and meaning.

Water is essential and people have developed inventive systems for storing liquids.

The images on this black-figure painted vessel (Fig. 5.8) from the Archaic Greek era show women carrying water jugs very much like the hydria on which they’re painted.

Figure 5.8

5.8 Priam Painter. Women at the Fountain House, Greek hydria, 520–510 BCE. Ceramic, 1' 8 3/4" high. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Figure 5.9 (1 of 2)

5.9 Three-Legged Ting with Cover, Zhou Dynasty, China, c. 6th century BCE. Cast bronze, 5 3/4" high.

Figure 5.9 (2 of 2)

The ancient Chinese made bronze vessels for storing liquids, such as ritual wine.

Circles are repeated, even on the ting’s cover, decorated with a quatrefoil (four-leaf clover) pattern and cleverly designed to be used as a serving bowl.

Figure 5.10 (1 of 2)

5.10 Basket, Pomo tribe, 1890–1910. Clamshell disks, red woodpecker feathers, quail topknots, tree materials; 7” diameter.

Figure 5.10 (2 of 2)

A well-woven container made of natural materials can also hold liquid.

Watertight baskets were used for boiling acorns.

Intricate weaving, precious feathers, and beads mark this vessel, often made by mothers for their daughters.

Figure 5.11 (1 of 2)

5.11 Palm Wine Calabash, Bamileke people, Cameroon, late 19th century. Beads on a cloth foundation, gourd, cowrie shells, 1' 11 1/2" high. Collection of The Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey.

Figure 5.11 (2 of 2)

In many African cultures, gourds are used as containers for liquids.

This bead-covered gourd was for display, and had ritual and royal use.

It held palm wine, a common social drink in the area.

Stoppers on such gourds were often carved in animal shapes: leopards, elephants, birds, etc.

Figure 5.12 (1 of 2)

5.12 Saltcellar, Afro-Portuguese, Sherbro Peninsula (Bulom), Sierra Leone, 16th century. Ivory, 1' 5" high.

Figure 5.12 (2 of 2)

Like water, salt is essential and, at times, has been a form of wealth.

European nobility used elaborate saltcellars as status symbols.

This saltcellar was carved by African artists for export to Europe.

Figure 5.13 (1 of 2)

5.13 Andy Warhol. Heinz 57 Tomato Ketchup and Del Monte Freestone Peach Halves, 1964. Silk screen on wood, 1' 3" × 1' × 9 1/2".

Figure 5.13 (2 of 2)

These Warhol works are silk-screened wooden sculptures that resemble mass-produced cardboard packing cartons.

The work blurs the distinction between art and commercial packaging, celebrates simple colors, bold graphics, and clean layout of advertisement.

Warhol created these during the Pop Art movement, noted for glorifying popular culture items into art icons.

Art That Glorifies Food

In addition to sustaining us, food is beautiful.

Food’s shapes and textures are the subject of many sculptures and still life paintings.

Figure 5.14 (1 of 2)

5.14 Jan Davidsz. de Heem. A Table of Desserts, Netherlands, 1640. Oil on canvas, 4' 10 7/10" × 6' 7 9/10". Louvre, Paris.

Figure 5.14 (2 of 2)

In Europe during the Baroque era, still-life paintings were often lavish displays boasting of wealth and abundance.

Paintings of food took on a fetish quality, detailed and lovingly painted, like de Heem’s sumptuous fruits and sweets on silver platters laid on velvet.

The trays of half-eaten, soon-to-spoil food refer to vanitas—the impermanence of all earthly things and the inevitability of death.

Figure 5.15 (1 of 2)

5.15 Wayne Thiebaud. Pie Counter, 1963. Oil on canvas, 2' 6" × 3'. The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Figure 5.15 (2 of 2)

Thiebaud’s painting deals with food as visual display and popular icon, rather than as nutrition.

Thiebaud also alludes to the fact that, for many, fattening food has become something to resist rather than to eat.

Figure 5.16 (1 of 2)

5.16 Mu-Qi. Six Persimmons, Southern Song Dynasty, Dailoxu-ji, Kyoto, 13th century. Ink on paper, 1' 2 1/4" wide.

Figure 5.16 (2 of 2)

Mu-Qi’s painting reflects Zen Buddhism, emphasizing the importance of meditation and simplicity.

Empty space is an important visual element.

Many Zen masters chose to make ink paintings because of the form’s spontaneity and simplicity.

Figure 5.17 (1 of 2)

5.17 Silver Representation of a Maize Plant, Inca, Peru, 1430–1532. Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen, Berlin.

Figure 5.17 (2 of 2)

Silver Representation of a Maize Plant reflects traditions from Incan culture:

religious

political

agricultural

Incans made life-size replicas of plants and animals from gold and silver.

Figure 5.18 (1 of 3)

5.18 Edward Weston. Artichoke, Halved, 1930. Photograph. The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Figure 5.18 (2 of 3)

Twentieth-century photos of food were often vehicles for abstraction and media experimentation.

Weston’s photo reveals the complex design and grace of a natural form.

It also shows the technical achievement of zooming in to capture minutely detailed images.

Art and the Act of Eating

We eat for nourishment, but how we eat is filled with meaning.

Some meals are very formal, like those for holidays or religious rituals, others are very casual.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper (Fig. 5.19) depicts a meal as a religious ceremony.

The composition is very formal and symmetrical with Jesus at the center and framed by a distant doorway.

The one-point perspective lines in the ceiling and wall radiate from Jesus’ head.

All are on one side of a long table, implying that many unseen witnesses were also present.

Figure 5.19

5.19 Leonardo da Vinci. Last Supper, 1495–1498. Experimental paint on plaster, 14' 5" × 28'. Milan.

Figure 5.20 (1 of 2)

5.20 Stan Wamiss. Halibut Feast Dish, 2005. Yellow cedar or cypress, 2' 1" long × 1' 1" wide × 3 1/2" deep.

Figure 5.20 (2 of 2)

Native Americans of the Northwest Coast held ritual feasts called potlatches as a means for establishing social order among the people, with the most powerful people giving the most lavish feasts and gifts.

Some serving dishes were as long as 20 feet and were prized possessions passed down through families.

Traditionally, carved animal forms were abstracted and rendered as geometric patterns.

Certain features (such as eyes, beaks, and claws) were emphasized, and black outlines established the skeletal framework for the entire design.

Figure 5.21 (1 of 2)

5.21 Tea Bowl, Japan, 17th century. Ceramic, Satsuma ware; 4 2/5" diameter at mouth.

Figure 5.21 (2 of 2)

The Japanese tea ceremony is a ritualized partaking of tea influenced by Zen Buddhism.

In Zen, the path to enlightenment can include the most common of activities.

Figure 5.22 (1 of 2)

5.22 Judy Chicago. The Dinner Party, 1974–1979. Painted porcelain and needlework, 48' × 42' × 36'.

Figure 5.22 (2 of 2)

Some artwork references a ritual meal although no food is shown.

The Dinner Party contains 39 place settings, each with a painted plate and runner containing symbols and text that honor a woman in Western history.

With 13 settings per side, the design references Leonardo’s Last Supper reinterpreted in feminist terms.

The triangle is a female symbol and the symbol of the ancient goddess thought to have brought forth all of life.

The “Heritage Floor” beneath the table is covered with triangular tiles inscribed with the names of 999 significant women.

Figure 5.23 (1 of 2)

5.23 Duane Hanson. Self-Portrait with Model, 1979. Painted polyester and mixed media, lifesize. New York, NY.

Figure 5.23 (2 of 2)

Most meals are informal everyday events, but even the most casual meals reveal social habits.

Hanson’s mixed-media work presents the meal as a site for companionship.

This realistical sculpture often fools viewers into thinking they see actual people eating in a diner-like setting.

Figure 5.24 (1 of 2)

5.24 Janine Antoni. Gnaw, 1992. Three-part installation consisting of a 600 lb. chocolate block gnawed by the artist, a 600 lb. lard block gnawed by artist, and a display composed of 130 lipsticks made from pigment, beeswax, and chewed lard from the cube, and 27 heart-shaped packaging trays filled with chewed chocolate from the cube, dimensions variable.

Figure 5.24 (2 of 2)

Contemporary art represents a break with traditional approaches to depicting eating.

Replacing the traditional hammer and chisel with her mouth, Antoni transformed the act of eating into an artistic process in her installation Gnaw.

Using materials and objects socially defined as female fetishes, Antoni recast them in this context to raise questions about the position of women in art.

SHELTER

Over the centuries, people developed a wide range of shelter styles. The different styles were due to:

need for protection.

historical necessity.

availability of materials.

aesthetic choice.

need to follow precedent.

desire to imitate a foreign style.

symbolic importance.

need to express self-identity.

Group and Community Living

Group and community living is often essential for protection or for conservation of resources.

Sometimes it is preferred for its greater access to social and commercial amenities.

Figure 5.25 (1 of 2)

5.25 Moshe Safdie. Habitat, designed for Expo ’67 in Montreal, Canada. This modern version of group living features stacked modular living units that open up onto gardens on the roofs of other units.

Figure 5.25 (2 of 2)

Habitat is a product of 20th-century modernism with its:

emphasis on simple geometric shapes.

lack of ornamentation.

resemblance to abstract sculpture.

The structure is meant to be:

energy efficient.

constructed of available natural resources.

comfortable for many people living in a small space.

Figure 5.26 (1 of 2)

5.26 Çatal Hüyük, corner installation in Building 77, Anatolia, Turkey, 6000–5000 BCE.

Figure 5.26 (2 of 2)

Çatal Hüyük consists of one-story houses made of mud-brick and timber with plastered walls.

Houses are connected and clustered around open courtyards.

This excavated interior room may have been a shrine, indicated by the installation of bull horns.

Çatal Hüyük was likely an inspiration for Safdie’s Habitat (Fig. 5.25).

Figure 5.27 (1 of 2)

5.27 Pueblo Bonito, Anasazi, New Mexico, 11th century.

Figure 5.27 (2 of 2)

Safdie (Fig. 5.25) was also influenced by Pueblo Bonito at Chaco Canyon, especially its energy efficiency, location near natural resources, and design to include many residences.

This Anasazi compound featured high-quality masonry work and originally had beamed ceilings.

Figure 5.28 (1 of 2)

5.28 Dogon Cliff Dwellings with Granaries, Mali, 13th century.

Figure 5.28 (2 of 2)

Group living occurs in the villages of the Dogon people in Mali, Africa.

These cliff dwellings have been in continuous use since the 13th century.

Dogon villages are dense collections of adobe houses, shrines, and granaries that are often irregular in shape and are built on different levels to use all available space.

Individual Homes

The designs of individual homes embody:

climate concerns.

aesthetic preferences.

cultural choices.

Figure 5.29 (1 of 2)

5.29 House of Julius Polybius, interior looking out into internal garden, Pompeii, Italy, reconstructed, first built in 2nd century BCE.

Figure 5.29 (2 of 2)

The House of Julius Polybius is a spacious and beautiful house built for wealthy Romans in the 1st century CE.

Airy courtyards, gardens, and artworks distinguished the villas of the wealthy in the ancient Roman Empire.

The Roman house was organized symmetrically around an axis that ran from the entrance to the back of the house, allowing for lovely views and illumination throughout the dwelling.

Figure 5.30 (1 of 2)

5.30 Andrea Palladio. Villa Rotonda, Vicenza, Italy, 1552.

Figure 5.30 (2 of 2)

The harmonious geometric shapes of Villa Rotonda represent Renaissance philosophical principles of orderliness and hierarchy.

All parts of the Villa Rotonda are worked out in mathematical relationships to the whole.

Figure 5.31 (1 of 2)

5.31 Tomb Model of a House, Eastern Han Dynasty, China, 25–220. Ceramic, 4' 4" × 2' 9" × 2' 3". Nelson–Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

Figure 5.31 (2 of 2)

Traditional Chinese house design reflects different cultural values and different responses than Western houses.

The verticality and emphasis on roof design are apparent in this model.

A wealthy person’s home typically had several stories, each slightly smaller than the one below.

Wide eaves were both functional and aesthetic, capping each level and adding horizontal emphasis.

Balconies encircled the house.

Precious materials were used for house ornamentation and accents.

Figure 5.32 (1 of 2)

5.32 Toba Batak House, decorated façade, Samosir Island, Sumatra, Indonesia, c. 20th century.

Figure 5.32 (2 of 2)

In Indonesia, wooden houses were designed in response to:

tropical climate, including heavy rainfall and heat.

thick vegetation.

insects.

Parts of the Toba Batak House have symbolic meaning:

internal spaces = maternal

the house itself = body

stilts = legs

roof = head

trapdoor = navel

Figure 5.33 (1 of 2)

5.33 Tipi Cover, Sioux tribe, c. 1880. Decorated with images of tipis and equestrian warrior figures.

Figure 5.33 (2 of 2)

For thousands of years, Native Americans of eastern and central North America were stable hunter-gatherers.

When Europeans arrived, natives were displaced from their homelands and lived in movable houses, or tipis, originally small tents intended for hunting season.

As tipis became year-round housing, they were built as large as 25-feet high and were moved by horses.

Animal skins, buffalo hide, or canvas covered the framework of slender poles and were often painted.

Figure 5.34 (1 of 2)

5.34 Frank Lloyd Wright. Fallingwater, Kaufmann House, Connellsville vicinity, Pennsylvania, 1936–1938.

Figure 5.34 (2 of 2)

Wright believed that houses should be unified wholes that merge with their natural setting and use local materials.

Influenced by Japanese and Chinese architecture, Fallingwater has:

cantilevered porches.

non-load-bearing walls which act as privacy screens.

flowing interior space with few walls and large windows.

Commercial Architecture

Commercial architecture provides shelter for the needs of business and trade.

In modern industrial nations today, stores and businesses are often located in high-rise buildings.

Figure 5.35 (1 of 2)

5.35 Interior of Markets of Trajan, Rome, 100–112.

Figure 5.35 (2 of 2)

The Markets of Trajan was a multistoried complex that held administrative offices and over 150 shops.

The design was likely influenced by the enclosed markets of the Middle East and is reminiscent of today’s shopping malls.

The massive, muscular Roman style of architecture was made possible by concrete construction.

Figure 5.36 (1 of 2)

5.36 Louis H. Sullivan. Carson Pirie Scott and Company, Chicago, 1904.

Figure 5.36 (2 of 2)

One of the first innovative tall buildings in the 20th century was Carson Pirie Scott and Co.

Here, the architect exploited the design possibilities of steel frame construction coupled with the invention of the elevator.

Late 20th- and 21st-Century Public Structures

This era is notable for amazing building complexes.

Dense urban areas have been constructed across the world from Singapore to Dubai, occupying vast amounts of land.

This era has also seen debate about the lack of public spaces as big developments crowd out uncontrolled spaces, limit access to the public, or have commercial interest only.

Figure 5.37 (1 of 2)

5.37 R. Buckminster Fuller. U.S. Pavilion, Expo ’67, Montreal. Geodesic dome, diameter 250'.

Figure 5.37 (2 of 2)

Fuller believed that technology could provide more affordable shelter.

His geodesic domes were spherical networks of steel-frame tetrahedrons, and were a symbol of 20th-century innovation and progress.

The geodesic dome is an architectural form that can be scaled to large size, distorted to be flat or tall, and be covered with a variety of materials.

Although geodesic domes have been used as factories, greenhouses, military living units, experimental biospheres, and research stations, they have not become popular for businesses or homes.

Figure 5.38 (1 of 2)

5.38 I. M. Pei and Partners. Bank of China, Hong Kong, 1989.

Figure 5.38 (2 of 2)

Seen as sterile and oppressive, there was a resistance to the bare rectangles featured in International Style.

Architect I. M. Pei evolved the rectangle into triangles and diagonals in the Bank of China building.

Figure 5.39 (1 of 2)

5.39 Charles Moore with U.I.G. and Perez Associates. Piazza d’Italia, New Orleans, 1975–1980.

Figure 5.39 (2 of 2)

A more radical reaction against the International Style was Moore’s Piazza d’Italia.

Piazza d’Italia emphasizes visual complexity, individuality, colorfulness, and fun.

An example of postmodernism, Piazza d’Italia combines elements from the Roman Empire, the Italian Renaissance, and 20th-century entertainment sites.

Figure 5.40 (1 of 2)

5.40 Zaha Hadid. Broad Art Museum, University of Michigan, East Lansing, 2012.

Figure 5.40 (2 of 2)

Deconstructivist architecture continues to evolve past post-modernism, rejecting established conventions and seeking to shake the viewer’s expectations.

Many deconstructivist buildings resemble abstract sculptures more than traditional architecture, rejecting historical notes.

Hadid often uses stainless steel and glass for her façades and consistently designs beyond common expectations of what a building should look like.

Discussion Questions

In what ways can art be used in the service of the state and rulers?

What role does photography play in presenting images of war? Do photographs always provide the truth?

Many of the images in this chapter were used for propaganda purposes. Where do you see images or tools of propaganda today?