Fleshing out art histories

A plant biologist and an art historian came together for an unusual project that melded history and science to trace the evolution of flora and fauna.

When you sink your teeth into the succulent red flesh of the watermelon, do you realise that the species has remained almost the same since 4,000 years? Or, when you buy a bouquet of roses to gift somebody do you wonder about this flower that was domesticated about 5,000 years ago?

Well, if you listen to plant biologist Ive de Smet and co-researcher David Vergauwen, an art historian, both from Belgium, you will discover a fascinating world of how they meld art studies and science to trace the evolution of flora and fauna. At a recent webinar on the platform of Marg Foundation, Mumbai, titled ‘Art Histories meet Plant Stories’, they discussed their area of research. Both, by the way, are school friends and have now combined their specialisations for this rather unusual project.

The idea geminated, to use a metaphor, at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg in 2015 when they were examining a Baroque painting by Frans Snyders, titled 'Fruit Stall'. Recalls Vergauwen, “I noticed the strange looking watermelon at the bottom. My initial question to Ive was whether he thought watermelons looked like that in the 17th century. He didn’t have a noteworthy answer, but wondered if Snyders was a good painter and about the accuracy of this picture. But I said, Snyders painted the world true to life. So we concluded ‘someone’ should figure that out.”

Genetic analysis

Later, they found that artists in ancient Egypt depicted watermelons with dark and light green stripes similar to those seen today. Genetic analysis of a watermelon leaf found in an Egyptian tomb suggests the modern fruit’s millennia-old predecessor tasted like cucumbers.

Looking at art can help put these species on a time map and track down their evolution. Still- life paintings also show a diversity in shapes and colours. For example, the carrot. The wild ancestor has a white root, informs de Smet. “The domesticated one was likely red/purple. The orange one appeared at some point, but only became popular in the late 16th century Netherlands because of culinary habits,” says Smet.

“Everything is derived from a wild ancestor,” he adds, “and throughout time, these have been domesticated and improved to suit our needs or culinary interests. The strawberry, for example. An accidental cross between a North American and South American variety, which were grown together in France, resulted in the modern cultivated strawberry. But in some fruits, we observe little change, such as artichoke, watermelon, etc.”

Vergauwen finds that biologists seldom include art in their analyses. At best, pictures are used to brighten up the page of a book or an article, but art is almost never included as an equal partner in current research into the history of common fruits and vegetables. “Our aim is to include art as a source material and to use art history as a method to track down the evolution of these fruits and vegetables.”

He observes, “The story of our food cannot be anything else than the story of civilization itself. Mankind has always been responsible for the foods they consume and whenever people migrate or explore, they tend to both bring and find new foods with them. Sometimes, adoption of new foods was quick and easy, but sometimes it was slow and difficult.”

Tracing food paths

Europeans in the 16th century thought tomatoes, originally from South America, were poisonous when introduced by the Spanish colonists. Can you think of an Italian dish without tomatoes today? Or in India, for that matter, a robust Punjabi-style curry without it? Yet it arrived, like the potato and chillies, only in the late 15th century with the Portuguese when they landed in Kerala.

Art allows researchers to trace the paths travelled by such foods. By combining modern plant genetics with centuries of still-life paintings, the researchers realised that they could create a visual timeline of the produce’s domestication. “It would be great, were we to find images in colour of melons from 16th century Kazakhstan. Or an Indian banana from around the time of Alexander the Great,” Vergauwen says.

Asked if they are the first researchers to look at artistic depictions this way, Smet clarifies that it has been used in the past as well, but “this approach has not been applied as broadly as we do. Importantly, we add a strong genetic component to it. That’s why we coined it #ArtGenetics.”

What is the potential of this kind of study? “It helps to illustrate ancient trade routes. It makes people look at paintings in a different way,” says De Smet. Vergauwen shares that they expect to find a great many interesting depictions in Japanese, Chinese and Indian art as well. Have they examined Mughal miniatures, or Pahari paintings from India, with a profusion of trees and plants? “As Europeans and with easy access to museums there, we are concentrating in this continent at the moment. I’d love to study those Mughal miniatures. We’ll get there eventually,” Vergauwen says.