Juan David Latorre
Last Monday, in the framework of the celebration of the XXIII edition of the Italian Language Week in the World (SLIM), the Italian Embassy and the Italian Academy of Cuisine organized a tour of the permanent pictorial collection of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, to discover the Italian, Spanish and international painters who have made food “a form of art”.
The paintings of Tintoretto, Corrado Giaquinto, Francisco de Goya, Giuseppe Arcimbolo, Jacob Jordaens, Juan de Zurbarán, Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor, Joaquín Sorolla, Juan Van der Hamen, Peter Claesz and Peter Boel were the protagonists of the tour, which was perfectly explained and detailed by the staff of the royal academy and which interested the attendees greatly.
In his welcome address, the Italian ambassador, Giuseppe Buccino Grimaldi, referred to the event as “a journey where art and gastronomy meet in an exceptional way, with the aim of highlighting the cultural and social value of food. In these paintings, the act of eating is transformed into a metaphor for values, identity and tradition, to reflect on the importance of food as an authentic art form”.
“For example, continued the Italian ambassador: in Tintoretto’s Last Supper, food symbolizes union and community. Arcimboldo presents us the spring as a mixture of food and nature, merging creativity and tradition. Similarly, Goya, with The Burial of the Sardine, offers us a vision of the relationship between the people and their customs through food.”
Ambassador Grimaldi concluded his speech by stating that “the Mediterranean diet, present in many of these works, is not only a food model, but an expression of local knowledge that is passed on from generation to generation, uniting Italy and Spain. Undoubtedly, the Mediterranean culinary tradition represents a strong and consolidated connection between our countries”.
This special tour of the permanent collection of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in San Fernando can be visited until 1 December.
