I read an article “Can Food Be Art?” written by Rose WoodHouse, which discussed about the question food can be art or not. The author prefer to agree with the point food can be art, because she think food can also be representational, express people’s emotion, and people can perceive the creativity of food as well as art.
About food is art or not, it is a question worth asking, I have the same agreements with this author is there is no such a completely satisfying definition of what art real is. The author pointed out philosophers have historically not considered food to be art and gave us two important reason. “One is that it doesn’t meet one or another of some definition of art or other. Say, that all art is representational, or non-temporal, expressive of emotion. Another reason it gets discounted is that philosophers have historically put a special primacy on sight and hearing in a hierarchy of the senses.”(2012). Then the author take music as an example to refute the philosophers’ opinion, she pointed out a fact that most music is non-representational and temporal as well. It is true, if we considered music as art, why not food? In contrast to the article “Is Food Art” written by Trefler, she pointed out “A particular cook’s version of a recipe is an interpretative work of art, like a particular musician’s performance of a piece of music. the same applies if the creator of a recipe cooks his own dish; he is an interpreter as well as a creator, like a composer playing his own compositions.” (16). This argument strongly refute what the philosophers said in Rose’s article, Trefler thought a chef who created his own dish with his idea and emotion in it, is just like a musician who created impressive music, they are equal.
In my own opinion, yes, we cannot general say that food is art, is the same like we cannot say every piece of music is art. Although it is hard to give a precisely definition of art, however, art do has its standards and features. According to Ellen Dissanayake’s artice “What is art for?”, she briefly maintained “First, that the idea of art encompasses all of human history; second, that it include all human societies; and third, that it accounts for the fact that art is a psychological or emotional need and has psychological or emotional effects.”(p15). Food is necessary for every people in this world, it do included through all human societies and exist in the whole history, and some food do has its emotional effect. For instance, in my country, there is a very famous snack called “The Wife Cake.” It has a story of hundreds years history, there was a man who loved a beautiful young woman, although they were poor but they loved each other, however, the woman’s father got a very serious sick, they have no money to afford medical treatment, so the young woman had to married a wealthy landlord in order to get money cure her father. However, although the man was heart-break, was missing his lover every day, he didn’t give up and finally create a very taste cake to sell and earned money and redeemed his lover, they finally lived a happy life. The reason I post this long story is I want point out if the chef has creativity and spend time work hard, put his thoughts in food, food can be considered as art, it do have its emotional effects.
In addition, there is one thing I want to talked about is aesthetic satisfaction. Some people don’t agree with food as art is the original purpose of food is to satisfy human’s hunger. It doesn’t have any artistic value. I agree and disagree, although in our human history, food is to satisfy hunger, however, with the development of human society, people eat food is not to satisfy their hunger only, people started to enjoy their meal, chef started to create and research many kinds of new food, and different people in different countries have different diets, food is now not only a simple idea to satisfy hunger but also can represent different cultures. Like Rose said in her article “The distinctiveness of specifically aesthetic pleasures lies in its disconnection with the satisfaction of one’s other desires. Still, I think we can count food as art even though we eat food to satisfy hunger.” (2012). All in all, I’m not opposed to some people’s idea which disagree with food is art, because like Shakespeare said “There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes.” But if we considered food is not only the food itself, think more about the food’s background, making process, the chef’s creativity and emotion, I prefer to say food can be art.
References
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.
Dissanayake, E. (1991). What is art for? In K. C. Caroll (Ed.). Keynote adresses 1991 (NAEA Convention), (pp.15- 26). Reston, VA: National Art Education Association.
Woodhouse, R. (2012, May 7). Can Food Be Art?. Retrieved January 30, 2014, from http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/russellsaunders/2012/05/can-food-be-art/ – See more at: http://reffor.us/index.php#sthash.q1wwoDMy.dpuf