Food in painting: From dietetics to symbolism

Since the Antiquity, many artists have represented food in their paintings. Most of them are European painters originating essentially from the Southern Europe.There is no doubt that the Greco-Roman culture and Christianity -that became the official religion of the Roman Empire -influenced these artists since two millenars.Throughout the painting's production, we have tried to discover information of the dietary habits at a particular period, to scrutinize some dietary recommendations but also to detect the symbolic dimension of the represented foods.(c) 2023 European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.