Food is life
From the ancient human culture to the modern world, food is always a crucial part of human beings. People work for food; people adore food; people fight for food. When people have their cultures and thoughts, food becomes a resource rather than merely things to eat, and also, artworks can be the media to record how people treat food.
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| The Harvesters Pieter Bruegel the Elder 1565 |
Food is the source of human beings' life. People live on food, so they will make sure that they have enough food to eat, and they will grow their own crops or let other people grow for them. Let us have a look at Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Harvesters, and we can find some people were harvesting grains on the left side, and some people were having a break under the shadow of the tree on the right side. These framers might work for their landowners or lords, so we can see that they were laborious that even a man felt too tried to fall asleep. It was quite interesting that these landowners sponsored artists to paint those farmers. However, the sponsors lived on the grains which those farmers grew, which was just like Stokstad and Cothren said, "the wealth of the patrons who supported the growth of an art market was dependent on the labor of countless others like them" (Stokstad and Cothren 718). When people face problems with food, there will be no classes and ranks, because all the people are the same, and they all need food to live.
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Water is Life
Nicolas Lampert
2016
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Furthermore,
food is still a significant issue that people need to concern now. People
always say that water is the source of life, because about 70 percent weight of
human beings are water, and people can live without eating food for three days,
but they cannot do that without water. Most people do not realize the scarcity
of water, and they think that they just need to pay the water, but according to
the statistics from United Nations, there are about 2.1 billion people live
without safe water at home. Then, let us have a look at the poster above, a man
was holding a feather in the middle, and below him was the slogan, "water
is life", and at the bottom right corner, we can find the hashtag with
NODAPL. The background of this poster was the Dakota Access Pipeline protests,
and the leather showed that native Americans were fighting for their lands.
Though the government said the impact on the water and nature was minimal, if
the pipeline leakage happened, hundreds of thousands of people would suffer
from that. Water is crucial for us, and no other things can deprive the rights
of having safe water.
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| Still Life with Flowers, Goblet, Dried Fruit, and Pretzels Clara Peeters 1611 |
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| Detail of Double Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife Jan van Eyck 1434 |
When some
people have enough food to live, food will more value than just eating, and it becomes
a resource or tool. On Clara Peeters's Still Life with Flowers,
Goblet, Dried Fruit, and Pretzels,
we can find that the background was dark, which was the baroque style and can
make the subject prominent. As a closer look at the painting, the various kinds
of nuts were held on a big plate, which could show the wealthy of the patron,
and also, the flowers and rare tableware can let people think that the owner
was not a civilian. Like the portraits which were contracted by powerful and
wealthy families, "a still-life painting ... could also document and
showcase the wealth of its owner" (753). When people are not starving
anymore, rare food became a symbol of wealth, and it became a tool to show off,
which is just like the rare orange in Jan van Eyck's Double Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife.
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Solidarity with
Migrant Workers
Nicolas Lampert
2018
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Moreover,
food also can become a political tool, such as a bargaining chip, to change
other people's life. The poster above is from the Feast & Famine
exhibition, and the subject is that a corn-like missile was ahead on a fugitive
family, and below that, there was a caption about the impact of the U.S.'s
policy on subsidized corn in Mexico. Because of the high productivity and
government budget of the U.S., the U.S. became the leader of NAFTA, and it did not
keep the rules of trade, which was that developed countries exported high-tech
products and imported labor-intensive products, such as grains, from developing
countries within a trade union. The family in the poster embodied the trend at
that time, which was they lost their jobs in farms, and they need to find jobs
in the north, but it would increase the possibility of illegal immigrants. The
illogical policy of the U.S. government on corn messed up the balance on trade,
and it used food as a tool to impact other people's life to satisfy Americans'.
Food is
life, and food changes life. Through those artworks above, we can find that
food is essential for people when they are starving, but when they satisfy that
need, food will become tools or resources to improve people's life or impact
others'. Food should not be a weapon to make other people's life worse, and
people should help other people who are in need. Only then, can our world be a
better place.
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