For over a century, painting by Manet and the Impressionists has been understood as quintessentially visual art. In her new book, Consuming Painting: Food and the Feminine in Impressionist Paris (Penn State University Press, 2021), Allison Deutsch argues that this is a limited interpretation.
By examining the culinary metaphors that the most influential nineteenth-century critics used to express attraction or disgust toward artworks, and considering the gender politics at stake, we can rethink French modern-life painting in relation to the visceral reactions that these works invited in their earliest publics.
In this talk, she will discuss her research on the sensory reception of modern painting, and how it enriches our understanding of Impressionism.