A Hierarchy of the Senses or of the Arts?

[Wilfrid]

Reading the responses to my post, I think some of my claims were interpreted as being a little more ambitious than they were.

Of course gastronomic experience cannot be reduced to taste, smell and olfaction. I was reacting to the arguments I often see (on other threads as well as this one) that cooking cannot be art because it lacks many of the properties associated with other art forms. I wished modestly to point out that the processes through which we experience food and drink are so different from those through which we experience, say, theater and music, that cooking should not be disqualified as an aesthetic medium on such a basis.

My comments about the possibility of "recording" and "re-playing" gastronomic experiences went to the same point. I entirely agree that the performing arts would not cease to be arts if we couldn't record them (just as they did not suddenly become arts when we developed that capability). All that I would infer from this argument is that the fact that - as it happens - we can't record and replay gastronomic experiences is irrelevant to whether cooking is an art form or not.

(Interestingly, I was thinking about one of Michael Lewis's points this morning, reflecting on the enormous differences between the arts in terms of where we even locate the art work. I agree that a musical score is not a work of art. When we look at a painting, we are looking at the art work itself. In the case of music, we experience the art work when we hear the score played, not when we gaze at it. But is the case the same with a play? Are Shakespeare's "scripts" not art works, but merely instructions for creating art works? And when is a reproduction of a painting an art work? If the reproduction is indistinguishable from the original, does it not become an art work in its own right? Questions which are complicated by the ready reproducibility of lithographs, photographs, and so on. Of course, a key text here is Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", misguided though I think it is. A long-winded way of saying that, whether a dish can be an art work or not, I doubt that a recipe is.)

[hollywood]

All that I would infer from this argument is that the fact that - as it happens - we can't record and replay gastronomic experiences is irrelevant to whether cooking is an art form or not.

Maybe worrying about whether cooking is an art form is the source of the conundrum. Maybe it's just damn fine cooking when it's done right. Could be one of those medium is the message situations. In other words, maybe we should be talking about cooking as a good thing rather than art. Note that musicians have been praised for good performances/recordings by getting described as "cookin'" or "really cookin'". Perhaps the painters should be aspiring to be described as cooks rather than the cooks wanting to be labelled artists. Is the grass greener there?

Edited January 10, 2003 by hollywood (log)

[Gavin Jones]

Many of the issues which have been discussed bear equally well on sex (I think foreshadowed by earlier posters).

It involves internal and external experience, a different set of sensual experience to traditional 'high art' experiences. It is an experience which is relatively common - thus posing the question what is the artistic experience.

I've been given to understand that it can have a sublime or transcendent component to its experience. It still seems very odd to consider it art. 'Honey, Let's make a masterpiece'.

[Wilfrid]

Gavin, I share your implicit scepticism. I find it very hard to distinguish phenomenologically between the experience I have when looking at a sunset, a landscape or a beautiful face from the experience I have when looking at a great painting. Those all seem to be aesthetic experiences. Now, I am convinced that sunsets, landscapes and pretty faces aren't works of art, but saying why is going to involve talking about artists, galleries and the art market rather than the quality of my experience.

It may be that food isn't art just because it isn't sold by art dealers.

[hollywood]

It may be that food isn't art just because it isn't sold by art dealers.

Hmmm....

[Bux]

I find it very hard to distinguish phenomenologically between the experience I have when looking at a sunset, a landscape or a beautiful face from the experience I have when looking at a great painting.  Those all seem to be aesthetic experiences.  Now, I am convinced that sunsets, landscapes and pretty faces aren't works of art, but saying why is going to involve talking about artists, galleries and the art market rather than the quality of my experience.

It may be that food isn't art just because it isn't sold by art dealers.

That's too sarcastic for my taste. The difference between sunsets, landscapes, etc. and painting is that the former occur in nature and the latter is man made. I think it was Gertrude Stein who, when questioned as to what she found fascinating about art and artists, exclaimed to her friend that some people treasure an oyster's pearls while she prefers the works of men. That's a rather freely recalled from memory and she might have said something quite different, but your post brought this to mind. People make Art. People make food. It does't follow that food is art of course.

Earlier in this thread I said

When it comes to arranging the fine, decorative, performing, etc. arts, I wonder if it serves any better purpose than arranging society on the basis of birth to the proper parentage.

Perhaps I find hierarchies of this sort more absurd than distasteful. Assuming I could place painting, sculpture, music and the many arts in their proper places, I'd then be faced with a hierarchy of artists and works within each art form. If oil painting were placed higher than pencil drawing, would a Rembrandt drawing be inferior to an oil painting for sale on the sidewalks around Washington Square? I am suspicious of the intentions of those who would make these distinctions and of their need to do so.

As others have pointed out, art is about ideas and creativity. It is often, if not always, about the way we see or perceive things and about how we relate to the world and generally on an abstract level. We rarely see art in museums. We see culture; at least to the extent that what we see is not painting and sculpture that changes our perceptions, but the works that have formed our culture's perceptions. The making of something very well has very little, if anything to do with it's being art. As much as it's easier to respect an artist who is also a craftsman, many of our twentieth century cultural icons are already in severe need of restoration and perhaps doomed to a short life and a well made pair of shoes in not necessarily art.

The question that is begged, I suppose, by my post is whether food can be abstract. Can a renaissance painting created precisely to tell a story be abstract? What we're talking about are the concepts that arise in the mind of the creator of the painting, the music and the food. If the chef can change our perceptions in a way that goes beyond "gee, this tastes delicious," I think there's an art involved, but I'd be loathe to tell you it where it's value lies in relation to a sonata or a good novel.

[hollywood]

The question that is begged, I suppose, by my post is whether food can be abstract.

Are we ready for the culinary equilavent of John Cage's 4'33"? With art and music, you don't expect to get fed. With cuisine, however, how many gourmets want to go home hungry?

[Fat Guy]

I've been thinking about the quote from Prof. Korsmeyer that got us started here:

“Food cannot express emotion (though a cook may ‘express herself’ and feelings such as love for friends in the act of cooking). Nor can it move us in the way that great art can. … Perfumes and flavours, natural or artificial, are necessarily limited: unlike the major arts, they have no expressive connections with emotions, love or hate, death, grief, joy, terror, suffering, yearning, pity, or sorrow, or plot or character development. But this need not put them out of court.”

It reminded me of the long-standing debate regarding the ability of instrumental music (i.e., music without words) to express emotion. Ditto for abstract (non-representational) art.

If somebody sings a song and the lyrics are, "I am so sad, I am so sad, I am so very very sad," it's not hard to say the music is conveying emotion or at least attempting to do so. If someone paints a portrait of a person and the subject of the portrait is crying, the same is true. But what of a painting of colored squares, or a "tone poem"?

It seems to me that most have accepted non-representational art as art. If so, what distinguishes it from food in its ability to express emotion, or lack thereof?

Perhaps I can convince the professor to explain her position on this. I've found her Web site and e-mail address, and have asked her to comment.

[Bux]

I've been thinking about the quote from Prof. Korsmeyer that got us started here:

"Food cannot express emotion (though a cook may 'express herself' and feelings such as love for friends in the act of cooking). Nor can it move us in the way that great art can. ..."

I've had meals that made me want to cry. That may not be what Prof. Korsmeyer has in mind. Much as I champion the avoidance of hierarchies in art, I feel that art that attempts to tug on my emotions is at the cheaper end on some scale of things. I am far more stirred by Bach than Wagner and the paintings of wide eyed children that pass for art depress me in a way that is not the artist's intent. I've been moved by a great meal and great art can be an intellectual experience rather than an emotional one. I'm just not interested in what's up that tree no matter how loudly one barks there.

The question that is begged, I suppose, by my post is whether food can be abstract.

Are we ready for the culinary equivalent of John Cage's 4'33"? With art and music, you don't expect to get fed. With cuisine, however, how many gourmets want to go home hungry?

Analogies between the arts are difficult to make and surely that's not the only abstract model for cooks to follow. Is there a CD of this work available for me to listen to, if that's the applicable word. I don't see a chef creating a fast as a work of art or dinner menu and surely it's a surprise meal he could only offer once for effect. On the other hand, I could see a chef creating a menu especially suited to ending a day of fasting. If the chef was so talented or his reputation so great, it would not stretch my sense of belief to hear that some truly dedicated connoisseur who had no religious or medical reason to fast, might nonetheless resist the intake of food for the appropriate period of time in order to fully appreciate the menu.

[macrosan]

We cynics struggle to enter meaningful conversations about some "modern art". But surely what separates the visual arts from all others is that their practitioners arrogate to themselves the right to define it. So if an artist says "this is art" then there is no objective basis upon which that claim can be denied. So a painter can calim that a blank canvas is art, and that has been done and (seemingly) gained acceptance among the art community.

The example in the musical arts of John Cage's piece is surely no more than whimsy, a practical joke played by a musician on a very small group of people who were apparently taken in by his joke. For apart from those people, surely it is universally accepted that "no music" cannot constitute "music". I think the intellectual foundation of musical arts is rather more sound than that of the visual arts.

The difference between "food as art" and "the arts" is surely this. Food is primarily intended to be just that --- a means of feeding people. "Great food" is designed to meet that criterion and also to provide pleasure, whether emotional or carnal. Whereas art is only art, it need serve no other primary purpose than to exist for itself. Art need only stir the emotions of the artist. It's ability to stir the observer may be accidental, and the emotion of the observer may be quite different from that of the artist.

Perhaps the only comparison that can be made is just that food is sometimes art, but art is always art.

[hollywood]

The question that is begged, I suppose, by my post is whether food can be abstract.

Are we ready for the culinary equivalent of John Cage's 4'33"? With art and music, you don't expect to get fed. With cuisine, however, how many gourmets want to go home hungry?

Analogies between the arts are difficult to make and surely that's not the only abstract model for cooks to follow. Is there a CD of this work available for me to listen to, if that's the applicable word. I don't see a chef creating a fast as a work of art or dinner menu and surely it's a surprise meal he could only offer once for effect. On the other hand, I could see a chef creating a menu especially suited to ending a day of fasting. If the chef was so talented or his reputation so great, it would not stretch my sense of belief to hear that some truly dedicated connoisseur who had no religious or medical reason to fast, might nonetheless resist the intake of food for the appropriate period of time in order to fully appreciate the menu.

Great answer. There are recordings of 4'33" but I think you want to see the video or a live performance instead. So, where's the restaurant and when do we start fasting?

[JAZ]

What I continue to wonder about (and here it would be great to hear from artists from many disciplines) is whether cookery offers the artist wide enough scope (or complexity) for expression. ...

Given that the pastry cook's creations are in some sense more plastic and more durable than the ordinary cook's, does pastry offer more complexity or scope?

What about the winemaker's art?

But anyone who has read Dr. Korsmeyer's book can tell you that the artist's experience is not a topic that she addresses at all. That ommission puzzles me, but then I haven't studied aesthetics and don't know the usual parameters of the discipline (I preferred logic and philosophy of language). Korsmeyer instead concentrates on the object, and her criteria for defining any objects (food or paintings) as art have to do with whether the objects are symbolic in any of several ways. Again, not having studied aesthestics, I don't know how common her approach is.

Common or not, her approach leads to some curious conclusions. Yes, she says, food can be symbolic (she gives as two examples Thanksgiving dinner and Passover foods), and thus it can attain "aesthetic significance." She continues, "I believe that insolfar as they carry the same sort of aesthetic significance [as works of art]...food and drink merit aesthetic standing, and at the same time serve many of the same symbolic functions as do works of fine art. However, the latter role, which I believe makes foods deeply important and not just sensuously delightful, is not always paramount when the quality of cuisine is being evaluated. In this instance, the sensuous enjoyment of eating and drinking often legitimately takes the foreground, and the other symbolic functions of foods...recede..." She goes on to conclude, "Even when the fare is scanty or poor and the sensuous enjoyment thereby lessened, however, the other symbolic fundtions of foods may still be of such importance that the festival, practice or ritual of which eating is a component is in no way diminished."

In other words, in Korsmeyer's view, the quality of the cooking is pretty much irrelevant to whether a particular food has artistic significance.

And that, to me, was deeply dissatisfying. I bought and read the book (which I found to be very informative) expecting some sort of discussion of the artist and the process of creation, and there was none.

I have my own ideas on that topic, though. Having played the flute for many many years, I find striking parallels between music and cooking. First of all, I think you can differentiate among cooks in the same way you can differentiate musicians. There are musicians who are talented at one (or more instruments) -- often very talented -- yet who only play what others have written. They do not compose anything themselves. There are musicians who don't really compose new music, but who make modifications -- minor or major -- to the written music they play from. Then there are the musicians who compose original pieces. Likewise, with cooks, you have the ones who follow recipes, with various degrees of skill. You have the more "adventurous" sorts who begin with a written recipe but will often modify it. Then you have the cooks who devise their own recipes.

Also, you have levels of originality in composition. The composers of commercial jingles and TV themes are certainly composing "original" pieces, but many of their compositions are not very imaginitive -- they rely on familiar chords, progressions, and combinations of instruments. Those chefs who devise the dishes and menus for Olive Garden or Red Lobster compose "original" recipes, but there's nothing terribly new and exciting in their repertoires.

But of course, originality is a relative term. Virtually no composer ignores the music that has come before him, just as no cook can truly ignore her culinary background. The John Cages are as rare as the Ferren Adrias (which is maybe not such a bad thing). Sometimes the most striking talent consists in taking the old and familiar and adding a twist that turns it into something new and exciting.

So, who are the artists, and who are the craftsmen (for lack of a better term)? Seems to me that the act of creating something, rather than just playing what's there, or following a recipe, is a big part of what it takes for either a musician or a cook to be called an artist. Of course the result of the creativity has to be something that people want to listen to, or to eat -- otherwise, what's the point?

The short answer to your question (that is, does cookery offer enough scope for expression to be considered an art) is yes. You may as well ask if music offers enough complexity. But does that mean that all or even most cooking is art? No, just as much of the music around is not art.

[Wilfrid]

Time does not permit - right now, anyway - the lengthy reply JAZ's post deserves. In short, I think it is common for philosophical works of aesthetics to address art works and our experience of them rather than the artist's process of creation. No doubt there are worthy exceptions. I am sure the main reason is that few professional philosophers are artists, so they find it more convenient to address aesthetic experience, to which they are privy, than the creative experience, to which they are not.

Still at the disadvantage of not having read Dr Korsmeyer's book, if she takes a "symbolic" function to be essential to the art work, many will disagree. Certainly in painting and sculpture, many artists will insist that the work, in its plasticity, is what it is, and that it doesn't "stand for" or provide a "symbol" for something else. You will find the same argument presented by some poets, to say nothing of the performing arts.

[ballast_regime]

just a short note, since time only permits such: i think it's dangerous and not necessarily analogous to compare food to music (and only music), for reasons that i have already stated. food as art emerges from one overriding principle that one does not find in music, or most arts: the culinary arts are driven by profit, bottom-line, and would otherwise not exist. using cage's 4'33" also doesn't lend itself to any clear parallels that i can see. cage believed that (i) the two qualities that all music shares are (a) the possible range of all sounds and (b) that all music occurs over time ("rhythm"), and (ii) his use of silence was to prove a point (at least to him), that it is impossible to ever really have silence (and that what we refer to as "silence" is a part of sound). to more appropriately extend the cage analogy, it would be beneficial to ask about what qualities one finds present in every food around the world:

(i) the range of all possible tastes (and smells);

(ii) it is all nutritive;

(iii) ? ? ? [your suggestions here]

true "silence" on the plate isn't possible in the same context as it was for cage within music, since one is always hearing something. it is imaginable that when i starve, i'm not going to be tasting anything (other than my own saliva).

perhaps a more interesting example (at least for me) has to do with minimalism. people like rothko and tadao ando (after a recent venture to his fort worth museum of modern art) have led to me to think seriously about institutions like museums or churches or zoos. a lot of minimalist work (say, rothko) created "empty" or "negative" (re: all black) canvases to point the viewer's direction away from the canvas, so as to call into question the very idea of a museum. similar doctrines have been espoused (and more fully) within religious sects: churches and church officials obfuscate god, and take the true meaning of spirituality out of the hands of the people. i ventured across an essay on ando's work that asserted his museums try to point the museum-goer's attention outside, since it is nature that is infinitely beautiful and since the works hanging inside are reinforce the belief that "art" is something only created by an elected handful. all of this reminds me of a calvin & hobbes, where calvin runs to hobbes, excited about going to the zoo. he tells hobbes, c'mon let's go, buddy. hobbes says, only if we go to a prison first. calvin then walks back up to his mother after pondering hobbes's point and says, i don't want to go anymore. if there were a minimalism within the culinary arts that had a simliar goal--to call into the question the very nature of fine dining by putting nothing or next to nothing on a plate--then i think that would be interesting.

there is plenty to be learned about the nature of food as art by comparing gastronomy to all arts, since it is through such comparison we can learn what's relevant and what's not.

iml

ballast/regime

[Robert Schonfeld]

I would take the position that the making of virtually any art has related to it a means, a motive or a need for earning money.

Ballast Regime, two questions:

-Can you point us to references for the notion of Rothko's intent to direct the viewers attention away from his work and hence call into question the existence of museums?

-Could it be that the spaces of time between courses are the "silences" in the music of the meal?

[JAZ]

just a short note, since time only permits such:  i think it's dangerous and not necessarily analogous to compare food to music (and only music), for reasons that i have already stated. 

For clarification's sake, I really was not comparing food with music. I was comparing chefs with musicians, or on another level, I was comparing the act of cooking with the act of composing or playing a piece of music. I think there are some useful parallels to consider there. And why, may I ask, is that dangerous? It was supposed to be a sort of mental exercise.

[ngatti]

just a short note, since time only permits such:  i think it's dangerous and not necessarily analogous to compare food to music (and only music), for reasons that i have already stated.  

For clarification's sake, I really was not comparing food with music. I was comparing chefs with musicians, or on another level, I was comparing the act of cooking with the act of composing or playing a piece of music. I think there are some useful parallels to consider there. And why, may I ask, is that dangerous? It was supposed to be a sort of mental exercise.

Yes Ian, I agree with JAZ. With only my own personal subjective experiences to go on. I find the *cooking* process to be very analagous to a musical one. Meals can be orchestrated, ingredients and dishes are underlying or dominant themes and notes, etc...Although perhaps not to the avant garde extreme that I sense in your post. As with the music you speak of, the culinary music we speak of is, of course, limited by context (equipment, variety of ingredients).

It works for me with menu and dish *composition*. I also think food and cooking can also appear in a vacuum. That is to say without the underlying need to make a profit.

Nick

[oraklet]

the most interesting part of this discussion is the vagueness and ambiguity. i find it intriguing that nobody is able to come up with a useful definition of art - though we will liberally use the word! - and that all analogies are allusive rather than...logical, structural or what ever. it's a bit like middle age theologicans trying to define god. not that i think this comparison is very useful, either.

there must be a reason for this.

[ballast_regime]

robert: i was running on very little sleep, and had confused rothko for robert rauschenberg--who was incidentally a personal inspiration for cage's 4'33", along with a few other artists cage met while teaching in seattle--which came from rauschenberg's series of completely black and white paintings. sorry if i misrepresented rothko, but a retraction's in order. if you'd like references to rauschenberg, i'd be more than happy to dig some up. one that springs to mind is in a phaidon collection of 20th century artistic movements; the title escapes me, but i can find out if you'd like.

also, i think your second question is a very good one, about the "rests" or "silences" between dishes. of course, this assumes that one is having multiple dishes in the first place, but if this were the case, then. . . no, i don't think that the "silence" would be the same. for one thing, cage intended there to be sound during 4'33", but it was ambient sound (the sound of the performer, the sound of turning pages [of the musical notation], the sound of the audience, and so on]. when one is not tasting food, there is no "ambient" taste to speak of. cage's intention was to show that everything is music, really, since noise is always present. second, cage was trying to allow for there to be a sort of interactivity between performer and audience, ultimately trying to snuff the line between the two. i'm not sure that the space between dishes does the same, that it would elevate diners to the role of creator (in fact, i know it doesn't).

JAZ: all in all, i have no bone to pick with your beliefs, and just wanted to state mine. however, to answer your question, such comparisons aren't necessarily fruitful because, all too often, i see people make this kind of parallels between music and food, but with little success. what about the other arts? (my critique, understand, isn't aimed at you.) what about the underlying need to turn a profit with food? (let's not pretend that restaurant-quality food, which is the level of cuisine most likely to be maligned as "art," isn't dependent upon profit.) why is there a music theory but no food theory? etc. there are just too many dissimilarities for me to even try and make such a comparison (which doesn't mean that i can't appreciate the things they do have in common, which are very few). i would say it's dangerous because it's often lazy: people don't try and treat food as an art unto itself (which it is) and don't try and learn things from other arts (architecture, painting, sculpture and design for the arrangement of foodstuffs on a plate; film for the movement of dishes; and so on).

ngatti: i don't disagree with what you're saying: there are, and can be, similarities.

iml

ballast/regime

[JAZ]

JAZ:  all in all, i have no bone to pick with your beliefs, and just wanted to state mine.  however, to answer your question, such comparisons aren't necessarily fruitful because, all too often, i see people make this kind of parallels between music and food, but with little success.  what about the other arts? (my critique, understand, isn't aimed at you.)  what about the underlying need to turn a profit with food? (let's not pretend that restaurant-quality food, which is the level of cuisine most likely to be maligned as "art," isn't dependent upon profit.)  why is there a music theory but no food theory?  etc.  there are just too many dissimilarities for me to even try and make such a comparison (which doesn't mean that i can't appreciate the things they do have in common, which are very few).  i would say it's dangerous because it's often lazy:  people don't try and treat food as an art unto itself (which it is) and don't try and learn things from other arts (architecture, painting, sculpture and design for the arrangement of foodstuffs on a plate; film for the movement of dishes; and so on).

So, okay, I guess I'm not really sure what your beliefs are, or more precisely, I'm not sure of the reasoning behind your beliefs. You keep saying there are few if any parallels between food and music, but you haven't provided any evidence aside from your claim that cooking is fueled by a need for profit. And in response to that I can only say that not all cooking is so fueled; and plenty of music is so fueled (TV themes, commercial jingles, pop singles come to mind).

I'm not pretending to have a definition of "commercial" art v. "pure" art, but I think there is a distinction to be made, and I think it can be applied to just about any "art." A lucky few artists -- be they chefs, musicians, painters, or writers -- can truly express themselves, "follow their muse" or however you want to phrase it, and still make a living. Pretty much everyone else strikes a balance between the commercial and the pure art. [Trust me, I know enough hack writers (myself included) to be able to attest to the lure of profit when it comes to that art].

I put forth some obvious (to me, at least) parallels between the processes of cooking and composing music, and you haven't refuted them. Maybe you just think they aren't significant, but if not, why not?

As to your other point, that somehow concentrating on music and food keeps one from looking at the other arts for analogies, I don't discount that there are some similar features in the visual and culinary arts, but I really do think there are more similarities between cooking and composing music than there are between cooking and, for instance, painting.

For one, take the executive chef (that is, the one who comes up with the dishes on a menu, not necessarily the one who executes them) and the composer. Both have to rely on the talents and skills of others to realize their creations. Playwrights, of course, share this feature as well, but today's painters don't (so far as I know), and neither do most writers. But for the musical composer, or the executive chef, or the playwright, composing the score or the menu or the play is only the first step, if one wants one's work to be accessible to the public. The composer needs an orchestra, or a band, or at least good synthesizers; the chef needs a staff; the playwright needs a director and a cast.

And perhaps so far there is no "theory of food" on a level with "theory of music," but Boston University now offers a Masters Degree in Gastronomy -- does that count? (tongue firmly in cheek here, but it is a subject that's getting much more serious treatment than it used to).

And I'm sorry to go on at such length; I've no bone to pick with your beliefs either. But I just don't know what your reasoning is, and so I'm feeling at a bit of a disadvantage. I mean, it's a little like that old Monty Python skit about the argument, where after much back and forth, Michael Palin finally blurts out "but an argument isn't just saying 'no, it isn't'" and John Cleese replies "well, it can be."

[Fat Guy]

I don't think we have to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to defining art. Perhaps we can assemble a few definitions that wise people have already worked on, and use those as a basis for discussion.

For example, Merriam-Webster:

"art: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also: works so produced"

That's just the most basic type of definition. But let's haul out the books. We've got Plato covered. He probably won't comment here. Maybe Korsmeyer will -- she indicated by e-mail to me that she would get around to straightening us out eventually. What does Spinoza say? How about Ayn Rand? It would be interesting to work through some of these definitions and see if cuisine does or doesn't meet them. Application of definitions conceived without regard to the issue of cuisine's inclusion or exclusion strikes me as a particularly valid way to come at this.

[Wilfrid]

That would be an interesting way of spendingf a day in a library, but I am afraid the results would be inconclusive. I suggested earlier the short cut of reading this little book which surveys the question pretty well.

Stepping gingerly around Ayn Rand, the major theories of art propounded since Plato are those of Kant and Hegel. You would also probably want to look at John Dewey. The most important living authority is Sir Richard Wollheim. That just scratches the surface. The problem is that each of these thinkers has a distinct view of what art is, and each of those views is widely criticized. As for the dictionary definition - well, it's just an uninformative tautology, since it doesn't tell us what an "aesthetic object" is.

I can address Oraklet's frustration to some extent: I think the reason a clear definition of art eludes us is that it's a category entirely shaped by human thought, motives and projects, which are ever changing and shifting. Language is good at defining tangible objects, especially ones we didn't invent, like dogs or trees. We invented the category of art; it's up to us what it is; and people have different opinions.

I think there are three steps to making progress with this question. First, recognize the huge and essential differences between the endeavours generally accepted as arts - music, painting, literature, etc. Second, try to identify the relatively few things they have in common. Third, see whether gastronomy or cooking shares any of those common traits. If I had a couple of hours to spare, I'd have a go. I don't think progress will be made either by reflecting on one's own aesthetic experiences, or by making comparisons between cooking and any other single art form.

[hollywood]

Dear FG, Wilfrid, et al.,

The current number of The New Yorker cantains a review of Marcel Rouff's "The Passionate Epicure" by Francine du Plessix Gray which reminds me that, as some forgotten Greek pronounced, there's nothing new under the sun. This tale of a fictional gastronome, Dodin-Bouffant, sounds as if the author knew several eGulleteers and was inspired to write about them and their ideas. In but four columns, Ms. du Plessix Gray touches on several of our ongoing controversies. Our hero banishes folks from dining at his house for improper culinary judgments. There's a cooking competition in which one chef offers a dinner of nearly 60 dishes (shades of Mr. Keller). DB by contrast prepares but four dishes centering on a pot-au-feu. (Does DB lack culinary relevance?) Elsewhere, M. Rouff compares great cuisine with painting, sculpture and music offering the view that "DB is a gourmet as Claude Lorrain is a painter, as Berlioz is a musician."

Coincidentally, I once ate many years ago at Dodin-Bouffant in the 5e (where although relatively unnoticed it apparently still exists today). I had a huge seafood platter, enjoying for my first time such mollusks as the violete (or is it violette?), periwinkle, etc. Good stuff.

[macrosan]

I agree with Wilfrid here. I think that most "definitions" of art are derived from an example rather than from some hypothetical concept of what it is or should be. Art is in the eyes of the beholder. As Wilfrid says, the question of whether or not food is art is little more than a consensus of people who are interested in the question. And even the consensors will generally accept the perfect right of those who disagree with them.

At this moment in our civilisation, there is a broad consensus that a range of traditional forms of painting, music, literature, theatre and so on are art. Around that group, there are some modern forms upon which there is significant disagreement. History says that these forms will either simply disappear or become accepted in the future within the main body of art.

Beyond changing forms of traditional fields of endeavour, there are entirely new alleged "art forms" which have still to stand that test of acceptance over time. I guess photography, which has exisetd only a hundred years, has only recently "qualified", and computer generated sound, animation and pictures are still undergoing the test.

Cuisine has been around for long enough to have been tested, but I think the interest level has not. I would take the view that the breadth and depth of interest in cuisine has existed for maybe 30 years, so it is still a fresh-faced candidate. It is not too soon to be discussing the strength of its candidature, but perhaps 20 years too soon top reach a final judgement.

[hollywood]

Cuisine has been around for long enough to have been tested, but I think the interest level has not. I would take the view that the breadth and depth of interest in cuisine has existed for maybe 30 years, so it is still a fresh-faced candidate. It is not too soon to be discussing the strength of its candidature, but perhaps 20 years too soon top reach a final judgement.

On the length of time the level of interest has been around, note that Rouff's book was written in the twenties, and that it tracks the career of Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826).