The question whether food can consider be art is large debated all around the world, and from this week’s reading “Food as Art” and the article wrote by William Deresiewicz, I know more about the different perspectives of the argument.

William Deresiewicz in the article “A Matter of Taste?” raised a new question that how food replaced art as high culture. He briefly talked about how Americans discovering their senses, such as “learning to value pleasure, making fine judgments…”and finally what happened next is food has replaced art.” He used several examples in different time periods in history illustrating that people could acquire more power by knowing or having more knowledge about food. He also pointed out the different things young men were chasing was changed. Nowadays, there was growing a large number of people to “look to the expressive possibilities of careers in food”, because they think food is representing “creativity, commerce, politics, health, almost religion.” Then, Deresiewicz talked about the importance of food in people’s life recently and he made a statement that food is not art. Finally he expressed his concern that “Here in America, we are in danger of confusing our palates with our souls.”

When people talk about food, our first reaction would be the appearances and taste of it, and it connect to the aesthetic reaction which is part of art. As Elizabeth Telfer stated in the article “Food as Art”, she said, “It is generally agreed that there can be aesthetic reactions to taste and smells. (There can also, of course, be visual aesthetic experiences connected with foodstuffs, as when one admires a rosy apple, but these raise no questions peculiar to food and drink.)” (P.11) I agree with her idea because I think everything in the world could be art, especially food, even the nature such as apple would be an artwork. Because the beautiful color of it and smell of the apple can all considered as the element of art. However, Deresiewicz brought the idea that “An apple is not a story, even if we can tell a story about it. A curry is not an idea, even if its creation is the result of one.” He argued the limitations which food can bring to human. He said, “But food, for all that, is not art. Both begin by addressing the senses, but that is where food stops. It is not narrative or representational, does not organize and express emotion.” But art can bring us the emotional changes.

Moreover, when Telfer illustrated that “Our definition of a work of art, in the classifying sense, was: a thing intended or used wholly of largely for aesthetic consideration.” (P.19) Also “Food properly so called is likewise often arranged or decorated in creative and attractive ways which constitute a visual work of art…the taste of food and drink as well as the look of it can give rise to aesthetic reaction.” (P.14) Then from her point of view we can say food is can be considered as work of art. By contrasting her idea, Deresiewicz indicated “Meals can evoke emotions, but only very roughly and generally, and only within a very limited range — comfort, delight, perhaps nostalgia, but not anger, say, or sorrow, or a thousand other things.” He does not believe that food can make people more emotional changes than art does. And he doubted that food could only create cheerfulness. I disagree this statement. For example, there are certain types of food would made me cry, because they contain special memories which maybe even some artworks would not achieve to that point. When food is very personal, it does make people emotional changes.

In my point of view, food is can be considered art, because it can make people emotional changes just like art does to human beings, and it connect to the aesthetic reaction.

Deresiewicz, William. A Matter of Taste? The New York Times. [On-Line Newspaper.] 27 Oct. 2012. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.From http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/opinion/sunday/how-food-replaced-art-as-high-culture.html?_r=0

Tefler, E. (2002). Food as Art. In Neill, A. & Riley, A. (eds.) Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates (2nd ed., Chap. 2). New York, NY: Routledge.

Is food art? This topic is very interesting and I always believe food is art, even though they are so many different types of food in the world and some of them may taste bad or look strange.

From the presentations I know the differences between fast food and slow food. As the video shows, the chemicals such as food coloring and natural flavor made the food tastes good but definitely unhealthy. Also the foods are not really “directly” made, because they were reheated. All of these reasons made fast food fast and tasty. When compares to the slow food, people spent more time on making delicious and designing beautiful dishes and it should be considered as a work of art, in another word, the process of making food is creation. As Telfer indicated in the reading, “food properly so called is likewise often arranged or decorated in creative and attractive ways which constitute a visual work of art.” And also “The taste of food and drink as well as the look of it can give rise to aesthetic reactions.”(P.14)

It is possible to draw a line between fast food and slow food, however, it is still hard to distinguish the idea of all food is art and some food is art. In my opinion, anyone can appreciate food from his or her own personal taste. For example, the foods you think delicious may be are the worst dishes others ever had.

“Modernism” can represent my point of view. As one of the theories of art came up by the author of “What is art for?” Modernism relates to the idea of “disinterested attitude” which towards the work of art. In the article “What is art for?” the author Dissanayake, E states that “Disinterest implied that viewers could appreciate any art, even the artwork of eras or cultures far removed from their own, whether or not they understood the meaning the works had for the people who made and used them. In this sense, art was universal.” (18)