Steve Durbin brought up the question of how do artists cook a while back, but I was not able to comment as much as I would have liked then; furthermore, I came across, again, some famous old thoughts on the subject, and I thought I’d share them with you.
First though, I’ve just been promoted from Sous Chef to Executive Chef at the resort where I work. Unfortunately, I’m always working now at least twelve hours a day. It’s my own fault, the long hours, for I fired all the lazy hacks on my first day on the job. I will have only focused professionalism in my crew even if it means pulling shifts for a time.
Involved as I am with the menu planning and presentation of our banquets for the coming season, the relationship between a practical, applied art, like cooking, and a more ethereal art, like painting, has been much on my mind. It’s been only on my mind and not expressed in art work because of my long hours.
I would not regard the following observations to be completely definitive statements for all art, merely facets of a diamond, and one possible diamond at that. I offer no images in this post, only ideas. But they are some good ones, I think.
Those who have studying cooking will most likely be familiar with Auguste Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire. Among chefs, it is considered probably the best treatise on the subject ever written. Not merely a book of recipes, though there are many recipes, Le Guide covers the essential principles from which recipes are derived; moreover, Escoffier permeates his text with useful applied philosophy.
Here is an example taken from the Cracknell and Kaufmann Translation.
In the introduction to the Second Edition, published in 1907, Escoffier discusses a conversation that his master Carême related. Carême was talking with one of his colleagues who “complained bitterly of the unrefined habits and uncouth tastes of his master.”
Carême’s colleague had decided to quit his job rather than violate the principles of “high class cookery which he had followed all his working life.” However, Carême indicated that his colleague was quite wrong, for “in matters of cookery there are not a number of principles, there is only one and that is to satisfy the person you are serving.”
An unimaginative or overly literal person might object that such obsequious groveling to the whims of the client can only diminish one’s art. To this tired and foolish argument Escoffier makes an elegant proposition.
“We might be criticized for falling so willingly to the whims of our guests and that by going to the extreme of simplifying our methods of presentation and service we are debasing our art and turning it into craft. This is not so because simplicity does not rule out beauty.”
Escoffier then quotes his first edition:
“We are convinced that the ability to give the highest possible distinction to the most humble items by presenting it in an elegant and correct form will always be the result of technical knowledge.”
Regarding technical knowledge, to toss off any of a number of hundreds of possible examples, when I see oil paint diluted beyond its capacity to retain it’s cohesion, when I see seven brush strokes where one would serve, when I see awkwardly reworked forms rather than graceful lines, I know what I’m looking at.
So I’m with Escoffier completely on that point. Given technical skill, it is possible to please the world. Simplicity does not rule out beauty.
A big leap now.
Apparently I have taken the cause of the casual observer as a cause célèbre. This seems to be the challenge I have posed for myself as an artist. I just can’t do decent work without passion, and I passionately feel that the regular person has been dealt a bad hand by artists over the past century, and it’s time we took a little responsibility. If their “tastes” are boorish, well whose fault is that? Who, after all, but we artists are responsible for setting standards?
Certainly I have no desire to win the hearts and wallets of a few pretentious day traders in New York. I look at the goings on at Sothbys and I’d like to see the place burn.
Certainly I’d like to see any number of international monetarists hung from gibbets. Chasing after their money or the fame they can bring is disgusting.
Arthur volutely described this viewpoint as “Populism” in a recent comment, but throwing a word at what I’m talking about is like spitting on a waterfall.
Other observers have noticed that Impressionism was the first truly middle class fine art form in history. At the Louvre, it has been long noted that among the print sales, if it isn’t a Leonardo, it’s likely an Impressionist image.
So someone likes fried chicken?
As a cook, I learned how to make many exotic dishes, but as a businessman, I learned to re-form my craft for the sake of the market. It was either that or bankruptcy. I personally cannot afford the luxury of just doing my own thing in life. I personally will not suffer at a job I dislike for the sake of money either.
So. Fine.
The chicken can be organic. The herbs can be fresh. The oil can be sparkling clean and mono unsaturated. The batter can be handled with consummate delicacy. It need not be deep fried, just browned in the oil then slow roasted in an oven. And the presentation can be delightful. Perhaps a few green onions sliced on a long bias which are used to send an asymmetrical line across the plate…
Oh, I could go on. But I think I’ve made my point.
Rex:
And the batter should be stirred and not shaken.
There’s certainly a lot to comment about in your post…
As a famous violinist said: “I may just be a fiddler, but even I listen to John Lennon.” This is the same J.L.who, with his friends, used to sing Twist and Shout to the uproarious approval of his adoring fans, a population that included day laborers and royalty alike.
Hi Jay,
I just popped in from work to grab some keys. This is probably another of my posts which asks no obvious questions and demands no specific feedback.
A penchant of mine, unfortunately. An essay rather than a post as I weigh out ideas aforming.
An High School English teacher once related the criticism that Shakespeare suffered from his “peers” for playing to the “rabble,” but where are his critics now?
I was deeply impressed by that.
Rex,
I agree that some artists, at least, need not compromise in order to produce salable art, or at least the compromises are reasonable ones that don’t diminish artistic integrity. Your simple yet elegant chicken is a fine example. On the other hand, I think that some artists are driven by ideas that will just never be popular enough to earn them a living. Nor do some artists care whether they earn a living from their art. There’s nothing wrong with that, I think, unless they have the attitude that the world owes them a living without regard to their activity.
Don’t you ever get the hankering to cook for yourself, or for a friend, maybe some wild idea you had that you want to try, even though you’re pretty sure it would never be a part of your commercial menu?
Hey Steve,
To answer your last question, sure, I do stuff for myself all the time. In food, gardening, exercise, art, and life in general. There is no lack or scarcity there. Many of my best works come out of periods of pure research with no thought of utility or application.
That’s just not the be all and end all. And people who think so and fixate on their ONE ORIGINAL IDEA end up like King Lear, masters of an empty land.
As artists, we need a return flow from our audiences. When this is lacking, we wither and perish.
What I’m proposing is not a lowering of standards, but a raising. It is a serious challenge. A higher level of responsibility.
That’s always a hard sell. Some will hear the call.
Of course anyone is free to do their own thing forever. Just like you and I are free to walk on by with a sigh at the patheticness of the effort.
Truly, I ask you, who really wants that?
Rex,
There are people who look to ‘brand name’ artists and buy art even if the piece of art is a piece of crap or otherwise. They buy it as an appreciable asset and treat it like any other speculative commodity. ‘Buy low, sell high’ until the art asset cycle reaches a trough.
There are others who buy art so that it matches the decor and color of their prized couch from brand name stores. Some buy Kinkaide while others buy imitations of Bob Ross. They appreciate art somewhat – at best a superficial appeal (for no fault of theirs). Often art that this type collects tends to be readily available and is ‘popular’ in malls and art fairs.
Then there are people who do not go by either the artist’s pedigree or the artworks beauty. For them art is neither an asset nor a ‘matching piece’. Sometimes when they get art, it fills their soul with joy, keep it for the rest of their lives and sometimes their children could sell it off for large sums. Such people collect art purely for the sake of the ‘collective joy’ that ensues from eclectic pieces that in cases only they can appreciate solely.
Would you not be inclined to think that if we go by the analogy given by you above (a somewhat moving one), we risk falling into the trap of the middle category. A lot of ‘middle of the road run of the mill’ art that may satisfy the larger tastes but lack depth? How do we as a group get to that ‘A higher level of responsibility’ that you state in your reply above?
Congratulations on becoming an Executive Chef. My brother will be finishing up his Culinary Arts degree in about a year from now from the Culinary Institute of America. Like you, I hope he melds art into his cooking…
Well Sunil, that was a thoughtful comment. You really gave me pause.
First, I do think that there is the exact danger you suggested: A lot of ‘middle of the road run of the mill’ art that may satisfy the larger tastes but lack depth. You don’t see it in museums, but that was a common characteristic of Renaissance art. Their training was very good. They produced a lot of artists whose technical skills were very good, but because the artists lacked imaginative vision, the work, while technically competent, was not truly great.
But I think that was a better situation regardless. It was an arena in which great art was made and was in no way handicapped; furthermore, we have right now plenty of middle of the road stuff.
Second, regarding responsibility, blaming one’s audience for a failure to sell or move is a deadly trap.
That would be no responsibility for the effect one has.
Therefore I would say that the first step towards freedom from that trap is a willingness to see the worth in others. Being willing to see excellence puts one in a more causative frame of mind. Consider it possible that the reason there is such a thing as bad taste is because we artists have been unwilling to find common ground with more people. Consider that we might influence others positively.
You bring up Kinkade. There’s a friend of mine who loves him. But by the end of winter, he was finding quite a few contemporary, non representational pieces, that touched him deeply, and he commented how his taste had grown by virtue of his association with me. Interestingly enough, I discovered that Thomas Kinkade does some of the sweetest plein aire pieces around. He may be the P. T. Barnum of the art world, but the guy can paint.
Last, I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes, this time good old Aristotle, “Where your skills and the needs of the world meet lies your destiny.”
P.S. Thanks for the congratulations, Sunil.
Rex,
It occurs to me that making food as an art endeavor could be the perfect solution to Karl’s “Why Is Being an Artist So Hard.”
Food is consumed, so the customer always has to come back if she wants more. ARt is, or is supposed to be, eternal, so there’s always going to be more of it to call out for attention.
People pay for food, every day. Some people pay for some art, sometimes.
Humans think about food (qua art) at least 3 or more times a day. Middle class folks go to art museums, galleries, or look at the coffee shop art, oh, maybe 3 times a year.
Interest in food is life-long and therefore constantly in process — being updated, changed, even, possibly acquiring tastes that earlier might have been distasteful. Art tastes tend to be form early and held onto.
So am I thinking about changing my goals and going back to waitressing? Well, no. But some days, it’s tempting.
And of course, all artists need an audience, so your “casual observer” post is as valuable as, well, the customer you serve with your other art.
But my mother always did say that Crisco made the best pie crust — outside of lard, that is….
Congratulations on your new position.
Hi June,
That’s a great point about the commodity characteristic of food, and thanks about the promotion.
In several analysis of the cultural conditions of historically great art periods, it’s been noted that there existed among the whole of the affluent classes an absolute expectation to have and display original art. Moreover, they spent a much higher percentage of their incomes on art than we do.
We do not have that among our middle class now. Why?
Because I have it as a goal to see that change, I look for ways to make it so. I don’t have the answer, but I’m looking. It has happened before. It can happen again.
I have a good nose, I’m told, but the scent I’m following is the education trail, not the economic one.
In my next post, I’ll elaborate on one aspect of that.
Rex,
You are passionate!
I guess the reason why I bring up Kinkade is that it reminds me of the formulaic landscape pieces done by some sweatshop artists in Asia that I notice when I walk by the East Brunswick, NJ mall where I go for my haircuts. Although I agree with you 100% on your quote by Aristotle. I am conflicted…