As time goes by, meals seem to be becoming bigger by the century. Whatever the stomach may feel about it, our mind – and eye – is sure the table should be laden more and more! Obesity experts noticed that, when depicting scenes from the Last Supper, painters began to add to the goodies on the table, and this has been going on over a number of centuries.
Researchers from Cornell University studied 52 canvasses of the Last Supper encompassing the period from 1000 to 1900. The amount of food on the table was estimated and found to be growing with time at quite a fast pace. The main meals on the later pictures showed a 69 per cent increase, while bread rolls grew by a “paltry” 23 per cent!
Modern painters certainly didn’t want the Apostles to starve!
Professor Brian Wansink says that this was a gradual process, starting rather slowly but coming into fuller swing from around 1500s.
So what the professor dubbed “portion distortion” looks like a great big trend characteristic for at least the second part of the last millennium.
Source of the image: Morethings.com.
