The intersection of art and food celebrated in an exhibition in Madrid

(ANSA) - MADRID, 25 NOV - From a 'Holy Dinner' in the company of Tintoretto to a 'Lunch on a Boat' with Joaquín Sorolla. Over the centuries, food has often been a key element in works of art: a close and enduring link now highlighted in the exhibition 'The Art of Eating', organised in Madrid on the occasion of the Week of Italian Cuisine in the World. The project, inaugurated this morning, was set up at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, curated by the Italian Embassy in Spain and the Accademia Italiana della Cucina in collaboration with Esperia Estudio.
    The exhibition is conceived as a thematic itinerary through works belonging to the permanent collection of the Madrid Academy of Fine Arts. A pictorial itinerary that includes 12 paintings, made between 1550 and the beginning of the 20th century: the leitmotif is, of course, the presence in all of these paintings of references to food, with the emphasis placed on the different meanings evoked in each of them by the authors represented, for example that of the act of eating as a "symbol of community" or the mixing of food and nature to celebrate "creativity and tradition".
    The excursus into the world of art and food thus takes shape with stops in various creative universes: from those of the Spaniards Juan de Zurbarán and Goya (with his 'The Burial of the Sardine'), to those of Italian-born painters such as Giuseppe Arcimboldo or Corrado Giaquinto, passing through the Flemish Jacob Jordaens and Pieter Boel.
    "In this route, art and gastronomy meet in an exceptional way, with the aim of highlighting the cultural, social and family value of cuisine and food," said the Italian ambassador to Spain, Giuseppe Buccino Grimaldi. In the exhibition, he added, the Mediterranean diet is represented as 'an expression of local knowledge that is transmitted from generation to generation'. The inauguration of the exhibition, which closed with a tasting of 'tapas' inspired by the paintings on display, was also attended by the secretary general of the Real Academia de San Fernando, José Ramón Encinar, and the delegate in Spain of the Italian Academy of Cuisine, Maurizio di Ubaldo.