AIC 2010 Color and Food, Mar del Plata, Argentina, 12-15 October 2010
BETWEEN MYSTERIOUS AND FORBIDDEN:
Red in Pomegranate and Apple
Simten GÜNDES Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Maltepe Füsun Deniz ÖZDEN Fine Arts Department, İstanbul University
1. POMEGRANATE AS AN ATTRIBUTION IN ART THROUGH THE AGES The color red is observed in many plants, flowers and fruits in nature. Among this variety, pomegranate and apple have especially drawn our attention for a semiotic analysis since both fruit have common characteristics as being names of places and representative of plenty. Pomegranate originated Eastern Iran and it had been brought by the kult of mother Goddess Kybele to Anatolia.
The name pomegranate derives from Latin “pomum” apple and “granatus” seeded and it is the common name for pomegranate in many European languages. Although it is known as granat means garnet, but it is still confused with the Granada of Spain. The Genus name Punica named for the Phoenicians. It is the mythological story about Phoenics who was sent by his father Agenor to seek his kidnapped sister Europe. Phoenics settled in Phoenicia and established Sidon town. The word of Side, means pomegranate in Greek language and the name of legendery woman in Greek mytholgy also the Side town in Pamphylia named after her. There must have been a connection between these two mythological stories.The word “Nar” (Turkish equivalent of pomegranate) is identical with the district of Side. This particular town is named as pomegranate in ancient Anatolian languages symbolically represents the fertility of this fruit as a fruitful region.
The representation of fruits in art is observed since early periods. They are reflected on Ancient Greek Art and Roman murals as popular subjects of humanity. It is termed “kore” for woman sculpture in Greek time. Well –preserved piece from Attica dating back 575 B.C. must have stood over a tomb. The body is awkwardly rendered under the dress, with typical broad Attic shoulders. One hand thought of extended, holding an offering a pomegranate the other to the breast in a manner derived from Near Eastern figurines of the goddess Astarte.
The great Picture of Telephus in Arkadia, a fresco copy from a public building in Herculaneum. it is clear that the original was a royal commision of the third to second centuries BC. The subject is Heracles’ finding of his son Telephus, the hero whom the Attalids adopted as the founder of Pergamon. This narrative composition has been interspersed with some purely symbolic adjuncts of kingship. Such as a basket overflowing with fruit is the symbol of royal plenty.
We can see pomagranate figure on the mosaic floor in Dorset. Central figure is portrayed as a fair haired, clean-shaven man with dark, rather penetrating eyes. It is thought to be the earliest representation of Christ. There are pomegranates each side of him as the symbol of immortality.
The Picture of Paris Bordone represents the victory of peaceful virtue of love over the force of arms. It is dated 1500s now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna. There is the pomegranate tree in the allegory picture including Mars, Ven端s, Victory and Cupid. It is a erotic scene before eating the forbidden fruit.
In the Greek mythology, Persephone who was kidnapped by Hades, prominently features the pomegranate. Persephone had no food, but Hades tricked her into eating six pomegranate seeds while she was still his prisoner and so, because of this, she was condemned to spend six months in the underworld every year. Pre-Raphealite painter Dante Gabriel Rosetti painted Persephone holding a pomegranate in her hand.
The paintings defined as “nature morte/still life� has significance in European Art. The arrangement of various fruit in a jar does not only associate the sophisticated eating tastes but also include further meanings. Especially in Dutch painting these objects had become an excellent field of experimentation. In this way, the harmony as well as the conflict of colors was analyzed.
The nature morte paintings which particularly take food as their subjects are called Bodegon in Spain. Nature morte paintings emerge as new forms in different movements in European painting. From their interpretation in Cubism to Chirico and Pop Art, it is possible to view this transformation. “Enar� Parsian name of pomegranate is one of the subjects in Shahname as a fruit offered to the Shah. This is a scene that illuminated in the book.
Today, the traditional nature morte is considered an out-dated approach in terms of artistic development. Throughout the development of nature morte, the artist first acted as the imitator of nature(mimesis), then the creator(poesis) and finally the selector of the object. Examples of the perfect selection can be seen at the photographs of Antonio Diaz who can be called as the post-bodegon. His photographs are not only stilllife but also represent symbolic means.
2. APPLE:FROM OBJECT OF DESIRE TO THE OBJECT OF FORBIDDEN Apple is originated in Central Asia. Turkish name of the apple is “elma” and similarly “alma” in Hungarian and Turcic languages. The name “alma” is connected with the city called Alma-Ata which is the capital city of Kazakstan. In the Latin name Pomum-pomaceous fruit of the apple tree species Malus domestica in the (rose family) . In Latin, the words for apple and for evil are similar in the singular (malus-apple, malum-evil) and identical in the plural (mala). This may also have influenced the apple becoming interpreted as the biblical"forbidden fruit". The center of diversity of the genus Malus is eastern Turkey. It must have been the earliest tree to be cultivated. We know the Neolithic Revulotion was occured firstly in this region . Apples’ fruits have been improved through selection over thousands of years. Alexander the Great brought dwarfed apples from Asia Minor to Macedonia. Since then it has been an important food for Europeans for Asians as it was. They stored the apples picking in late autmn for winter. Colonists brought the apples to America and Argentina. They were spread and desired so also were stored.
Michael Pollan, who examines sweetness as a biological desire, explores the history of sweetness’ role in society as once noble, now cheap and artificial. He also explains that fruiting plants exploit the mamalian sweet tooth by encapsulating their mature seeds in the sugary flesh of fruit, so that we animals transportation to the seeds. We and the plants have evolved to use one another. We know the food storage is the solution for the maintenance of humanbeing. The fruits and vegetables stored in the underground chambers through the ages in Anatolia.Goreme Valley is located in the central Anatolian plains.
Apple is known as a mystical or forbidden fruit in many beliefs. The Book of Genesis is not identify apple as forbidden fruit. But in Christian tradition apple is accepted as a forbidden fruit which Eve seduced Adam by sharing it. As a result of this, most of the Renaissance painters used Greek mythology; sometimes replacing the apple with a pomegranate, in their biblical scenes. In this way the mythological story of golden apples in the Garden of Hesperides named the unnamed fruit of Eden; the fall of man into sin, as an “apple�
The Greek goddess Eris, tossed a golden apple inscribed for the most beautiful one, into the wedding party which Paris of Troy was appointed to select the most beautiful among Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. He awarded the apple to Aphrodite causing the Trojan War. Herakles is famous mythological hero of his twelve labours; one of them is to travel to the Garden of of the Hesperides and pick the apples of the life tree growing at its center. Italy was the center of humanist and idealistic art for the Nederlandish and Flemish artists. Though many painters went to Italy Hugo van der Goes the melancholic master who worked in Ghent; he created in 1475-6. As well as the lumious coloring it was the first and foremost his ability to make visible individual experience. The two-part domestic altar with the fall typologically the representation of Salvation through the sacrificial death of Christ.
The apples are pictured as naturalistic style of Northern Art.
Caravaggio painted apple and the other variety of fruits in the basket, a simple faded leave among other objects indicates vanishing and perishing beauty.
In the picture of “Last Supper at Emmaus� of Philippe de Champaigne includes apples beside bread and vine on the table. Naturemort subjects of Vanitas paintings has the same deep symbolic meanings.
Stil life pictures were very popular among the rich people in 17.th century in Netherland. Fruits, flowers, already serviced table, crystal glasses are the reflections of wealth. The Picture named cookmaid;a mild pornography of food can be seen. Nathaniel Bacon’s painting whose ample melon evoking cleavage is contrasted with a variety of fruits to convey a traditional sense of sexual temptation. Fertility and plentitude. Such subject matter its origins in mid-sixteenth century paintings;viewing through a door or window, with a foreground dominated by an arrangement of food on the table. it must have painted in the 1620s. İt is clear that it is contemporary Eve figure in front of a paradisial East Anglian landscape .
Thanks to Simeon Chardin who added the term of “naturemorte� in French Art at the end of 18th century. The tecnique creating the emptiness at the back of the picture were realized Chardin firstly and then were used by Cezanne and the Kubists painters frequently.
The act of weight of sin can be seen at the photograph of Antonio Diaz.His photographs are not only still-life but also represent symbolic means.
3.Conclusion We see the examples that apple and pomegranate as attributed as a symbol of forbidden and mysterious. In addition to these examples still-life pictures are important for artists in studying colour experience. They date back as the 5th century BC. according to Pliny in his ‘Naturalis Historia’. The pictures of Zeuxis and Parhassios were higly developed for that ages. They imitated the nature perfectly: This is mimesis: The Renaissance painters made the pictures in the same way. After later they questioned the colour and examined the changing of colours with light. Apples’ color is not always red in nature but it represented with the color red in the art. It symbolizes eroticism, forbidden and sin while the color of pommagranate symbolizes innocence and mysterious. Moreover the cover of pommegranate has dark spots on degrading coral colour the seeds are garnet colour. It is the duality of between innocence and sin: Coral colour represents mysterious and innosence, the colour of seed with dark red-scarlett represents sin- forbidden.
Wodden wardrobe door from Topkap覺 Palace in 18th century.