Bread has been portrayed in art for centuries by both traditional and contemporary artists. These painted baked goods are as versatile as the real thing however, making it hard to pin down what styles and areas would be most well suited to and for this art category.
The difficulty in categorizing what elements are required in bread art is because this baked good is usually considered the sum of its parts. Therefore, a painting that depicts baking, grains, or even just the ingredients to make bread can be a type of bread art. However, most personal art depicts the baking process clearly or reveals the finished loaf, such as in the painting 'Bread is Baked' by Peter Seal.
Although modern art has displayed the majority of this artwork, traditional artists frequently used bread in Christian art and still life paintings. In Christian art, bread is associated with the body of Christ and portrayals of the Last Supper typically had some form of this element in their art, as well as using it as a tool for foreshadowing in depictions of other meals that involved Christ, such as in Caravaggio's work, 'The Supper at Emmaus'. For still life art, bread was an element that was used alongside other food or decorations but was rarely a main subject. These scenes were typically gentle and homely in nature, such as in Cezanne's 'Still Life of Apples and Biscuits'.
Modern artists have used bread in their works as a part of their focus on re-inventing common objects. These paintings can either have bread or some other association with the baking process as their main theme. Still life paintings are still a common vehicle in this objects depiction, however as modern art has grown, so have the types of artwork available. Flat and representational styles are used by modern artists to depict the smells and environments of bakeries around the world, as well as to showcase the different kinds of bread available through pop art and other modes of artistic expression.
