The Taste of the Eye and the Sight of the Tongue. The Relations Between Sight and Taste in Early Modern Europe

[en] This article examines the articulation between the senses of taste and sight through the representations of their organs, the tongue and the eye, in early modern Europe. The relationship between taste and sight first brings to mind gastronomical aesthetics, and the part played by the eye in the relish of beautifully presented dishes. The first part of this article is therefore devoted to exploring the taste of the eye (or the foretaste of sight) and highlights the harmony of taste and sight in early modern cuisine. However, the forms of reciprocity between taste and sight cannot be reduced to the sole figure of culinary aesthetics, which tends to blur the other multiple modalities that this sensorial association could reveal. The second part, the sight of the tongue (or the invisibility of taste), thus examines more complex layers of the relationship between the sense of sight and the taste organ, through a study of the representations of the tongue and of the gaping mouth in early modern visual culture. Drawing on early modern textual and iconographic resources and exploring: cookbooks; physiognomic works; conduct books; and also engravings and paintings related to the culinary arts, the seven deadly sins, and representations of madness and the fool in early modern visual culture, this essay argues that examining the representations of the sense organs is a suggestive way to explore the relationship between the senses.

Disciplines :

History

Author, co-author :

Von Hoffmann, Viktoria ; Université de Liège > Département des sciences historiques > Histoire culturelle

Language :

English

Title :

The Taste of the Eye and the Sight of the Tongue. The Relations Between Sight and Taste in Early Modern Europe

Publication date :

2016

Journal title :

Senses and Society

ISSN :

1745-8927

eISSN :

1745-8935

Publisher :

Routledge

Volume :

11 (2016)

Issue :

Pages :

83-113

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17458927.2016.1195564

Available on ORBi :

since 28 April 2016

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