Food & Culture: Food in Visual Culture

Selected Search Strings

• (food or cuisine or drink or alcohol) and symbolism in Academic Search Complete
• ("still life" and art and food) 
• ("still life" and art and food) in Academic Search Complete

Selected Subjects 

• Dinners and dining in art

Articles from Museums & More

• "It Isn't Thanksgiving Without an Argument" from the Art Institute of Chicago
• "Stilled Life: Photographs from Home" by Simone Levine for the Smart Museum of Art

There are a lot of collections of visual food out there--these are just a few. 

Collections

• A Bitesize History of Food in Art
• "A Brief History of Food as Art" from Smithsonian Magazine 
• Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: Food in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 
• The Good Old Times of Tea Parties
• The Taste of an Era: Food Advertising Posters at the Museo del Traje, Madrid
• Tea in Russia
• The Winemaking World and Representations of the Female Body includes advertisements, sketches, and more
• The Winemaking World and Women at Work includes photos, paintings, written documents, interviews (in French) and more

Looking for more collections? 

Google Arts and Culture is a great place to start. 

Are you looking for more images of food? You're in luck: there are a lot. The resources below can be a good place to get started, but they're hardly alone. Your favorite museums and art galleries (and even Wikimedia Commons!) likely all have images of food as art, too.

• Artstor (click on title after logging in)
• The Art Institute of Chicago has a lot of food art (and you can even visit in person!)
  • Coffee in art
  • Grapes in art 
  • Still Life With Dead Game, Fruits, and Vegetables in a Market by Frans Snyders
  • Tea in art
  • Thanksgiving in art 
• Google Arts and Culture
• JSTOR (search by image)
• Saskia Art Images from CARLI

These are not the only foodie films and documentaries out there, but they are all available here on SXU's physical or virtual shelves!

Note that several of the documentaries, in particular, focus on the labor and capital of food.

Feature Films

• Babette's Feast
• Chocolat 
• Fried Green Tomatoes 
• Julie & Julia
• Like Water for Chocolate 
• Ratatouille 
• Soul Food
• Waitress

Documentaries

• Dolores
• The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers' Struggle
• Food Chains
• Food, Inc.
• Generation Rising from Asian Americans 
• The Golden Cage: A Story of California's Farmworkers
• Harvest Season
• The Man Who Tried to Feed the World
• Tomorrow's Food
• The Wanted 18