Farm To Table: Art, Food, And... | Exhibitions

Farm To Table: Art, Food, And Identity In The Age Of Impressionism

The Chrysler Museum of Art

Norfolk | Virginia | USA

Oct 11, 2024 - Jan 05, 2025

Farm to Table: Art, Food, and Identity in the Age of Impressionism explores France鈥檚 relationship with food at the end of the nineteenth century through paintings and sculptures by leading artists. French cuisine had long been viewed as a reflection of the nation鈥檚 identity and a source of popular pride. Yet in the decades following the Franco-Prussian War (1870鈥�71), artists depicted the growing, cooking, transporting, serving and, of course, eating of food as a means of highlighting the economic and social instabilities of this tumultuous moment in French history. Ubiquitous scenes of farms, markets, and restaurants, offer gateways for considering the political, social, and cultural factors shaping France on the eve of the modern era.

Featuring more than fifty works, the exhibition showcases famous Impressionist artists, such as Marie Bracquemond, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley, as well as the works of leading figures in the French Salon, such as Eugene Boudin, Jean B茅raud, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Victor Gabriel Gilbert, and L茅on Augustin Lhermitte. Together their works form a resonant picture of the intersection between French cuisine and period social discourse, with the exhibition organized thematically to chart the cultivation, harvest, purchase, and enjoyment of food.