When Art Meets the Palate: Painting and Food from Spain at the MFA

Painting, Pablo Picasso said, is just another way of keeping a diary.

If that's true, then the diary of Spanish painter Luis Melendez was chock full of hams, olives, grapes, vinegars, tomatoes, garlic, cheeses, and who-knows-what in various jugs and jars.

All of those items were the subjects of his still-life paintings which, along with Melendez' 18th-century contemporaries, are currently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts.

The MFA's curator of paintings is offering special sessions to the public to explore the subject of feasting at the Spanish table.

And then, appetites whetted, we eat.

Or at least we watch a culinary demonstration directly inspired by the paintings and their gastronomic pleasures.

Both sessions -- the talk and the cooking demonstrations -- are offered in March in two separate sequences.

Both are bound to entice.

Both may just inspire you to start painting your own diary, of food or wine or or or...

Looks like that Picasso guy was onto something.


WHAT: Feasting at the Spanish Table
WHERE: Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston
WHEN: Tuesday, March 2 and 9 or Thursday, March 4 and 11 from 10:30 a.m. to noon
COST: $53 for both sessions (for members, students and seniors), $60 general admission
RSVP: Call 617.369.3306

DAILY TIDBIT:

David Arvid is one of the today's most successful painters of the wine experience and the pleasures of consumption. Find him online here.