a little luigi benedicenti to sweeten your week

~ jama

Today, for your feasting pleasure, the amazing oil paintings — yes, paintings (!) of Italian artist Luigi Benedicenti (1948-2015).

They can’t be paintings, they must be photographs, you say. I’m still in disbelief myself. Even if they were photographs, they would be awesome — but paintings? Truly incredible!

A native of Turin, Benedicenti developed his own style of “realismo extremo,” or hyper photo-realism, featuring Italian pastries as his primary subject.

Apparently the pastries were made by professional bakers, but he did not consume them after taking reference photos because he had diabetes. I imagine his family and friends were only too willing to help him “take care of” the pastries when he was through with them. 🙂

Benedicenti’s objective was to create a sensory experience for the viewer — stimulating the senses and taste buds in the same way the actual, real-life-in-person food would.

I think the term hyper- or extreme realism is apt since these foods surpass reality. He once said,

I want to improve reality, make it better through a more precise graduation of light and color, which create shapes and highlight details which would otherwise go unnoticed or that would not be perceived in all their strength.

All this food art lover can say is “Wow.” Look at the way some of this stuff glistens!

Craving something savory after all that sugar? Here you go:

Good thing it’s all calorie free. 🙂

Have a delicious Tuesday!

Lo adoro!

Copyright © 2018 Jama Rattigan of Jama’s Alphabet Soup. All rights reserved.

22 thoughts on “a little luigi benedicenti to sweeten your week”

  3. I was going to comment on the glistening, too! Amazing art, Jama. I think I need to go eat my breakfast, sad that it’s only going to be granola! But with blueberries! Thanks!

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  4. Although he couldn’t eat them with his mouth, he ate them with his heart, mind, and soul! Truly stunning and beautiful.

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  6. Oh, there’s got to be some digital… something he does with these paintings. I am never quite sure how picture book illustrators use the computer, but it seems to work WELL for this gent! Everything looks juicy and yummy and ridiculously appealing. He could have quite a career in commercial art making signs!

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    1. Reading what little there is about him online, I did not get the impression that his paintings were digitally manipulated in any way. It’s possible, though . . .

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  7. Buonissimo! Hard to believe that these are paintings–such detail! It seems like he really studied light to convey it so photographically–incredible!

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    1. These are amazing! The hyper-realism reminds me of Canadian artist, Ken Danby, who used watercolours or egg tempera. (Although I don’t think he painted food often. He did portraits and landscapes and still lifes.)

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  12. Incredible is the right word — as in I can’t believe they are oil paintings. Look at the edge of that bread! Wow. I’m amazingly impressed. Speechless even.

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  14. These are incredible! It makes me hungry just looking at them. I can’t imagine not being able to eat them but maybe once he spent so much time on painting the different dishes he didn’t feel the need to consume them. 😉 Thank you for sharing.

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