William Flew Articles about Art

Unexpected Consequences

Tachowa Covington was thrown out of his makeshift home in a water tank in Malibu, California, after Banksy wrote a message on the side.

Banksy, whose real name is reportedly Robin Gunningham, went to Los Angeles in 2011 after his film Exit Through the Gift Shop was nominated for an Oscar. Observing a pipe coming out of the back of the tank, he wrote on the side: “This looks a bit like an elephant.”

The sentence shattered Mr Covington’s life. As soon as Banksy’s work became public knowledge, a media design company called Mint Currency bought the tank from the City of Los Angeles and dispatched a crane to take it away.

Mr Covington, who had lived in the tank for seven years, managed to rescue most of his possessions but was left with no option but to sleep rough in the woods.

Mr Covington’s fortunes brightened last year when Banksy gave him enough to find a flat and pay his bills for a year, but that money has run out.

“There ain’t no better man than Bansky,” Mr Covington told The Independent last month. “He was an angel to me. He helped me more than anybody helped me in my life.”

52 Last Suppers

The Christian faith holds several acts of "super-sizing" to be miracles accomplished by Jesus Christ -- a handful of fish and loaves of bread expanded to feed thousands; a wedding feast running low on wine suddenly awash in the stuff. Now a new study of portion expansion puts Jesus once more at the center.

In a bid to uncover the roots of super-sized American fare, a pair of sibling scholars has turned to an unusual source: 52 artists' renderings of the New Testament's Last Supper.

Their findings, published online Tuesday in the International Journal of Obesity, indicate that serving sizes have been marching heavenward for 1,000 years.

"I think people assume that increased serving sizes, or 'portion distortion,' is a recent phenomenon," said Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab and author of "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think." "But this research indicates that it's a general trend for at least the last millennium."

To reach their conclusion, Wansink and his brother Craig, a biblical scholar at Virginia Wesleyan College, analyzed 52 depictions of the meal the Wansinks call "history's most famous dinner party" painted between the year 1000 and the year 2000.

Using the size of the diners' heads as a basis for comparison, the Wansinks used computers to compare the sizes of the plates in front of the apostles, the food servings on those plates and the bread on the table. Assuming that heads did not increase in size during the second millennium after the birth of Christ, the researchers used this method to gauge how much serving sizes increased.

And increase they did.

Over the course of the millennium, the Wansinks found that the entrees depicted on the plates laid before Jesus' followers grew by about 70%, and the bread by 23%.

As entree portions rose, so too did the size of the plates -- by 65.6%.

The apostles depicted during the Middle Ages appear to be the ascetics they are said to have been. But by 1498, when Leonardo da Vinci completed his masterpiece, the party was more lavishly fed. Almost a century later, the Mannerist painter Jacobo Tintoretto piled the food on the apostles' plates still higher.

New York University nutrition researcher Lisa R. Young called the Wansink study fun. But as the author of "The Portion Teller," a history of portion size through the 20th century, she also pointed to the three decades that ended the millennium as a "tipping point" for humankind.

There is scant evidence that the body mass index of people in developed societies soared into unhealthy ranges for most of the 1,000 years studied, Young said. But there is little doubt, she added, that that changed in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s -- coincidentally, when portion sizes began a dramatic run-up.

The Wansinks, however, suggest that portion growth may have a provenance far older than industrial farming and the economics of takeout food.

Instead, they suggest, it's a natural consequence of "dramatic socio-historic increases in the production, availability, safety, abundance and affordability of food" over the millennium that started in the year 1000 A.D.

The least successful stage set

Never have the possibilities of a sloping stage been more innovatively explored than in the celebrated 1979 Wexford Opera Festival performance of Spontini's La Vestale. The exciting decision was taken to cover the floor of the vestal virgins' temple with Formica, which not only looks like marble but also has the added attraction of acute slipperiness. The plan was to cover the stage with lemon juice so the cast's feet would stick to the floor.

But a cleaning lady was so professionally affronted by the state of this stage that she washed and polished it that afternoon, helping to create the most inventive and free-range choreography seen on the operatic stage for 100 years.

The curtain rose and the Roman general Licinio strode onto the stage, fell flat on his back and slithered towards the footlights. Singing throughout, he got to his feet. After several plucky attempts to walk back up stage, he decided to stay where he was, no doubt calculating that the next character to enter, his friend Cinna, would shortly be joining him near the footlights anyway.

On came Cinna, arms waving, who hurtled down the stage and crashed into his chum at speed. They were propelled towards the orchestra pit.

Averting disaster at the last second, they worked their way gingerly along the edge of the stage 'like mountaineers seeking a route round an unbridgeable crevasse', according to the critic Bernard Levin, who looked on with a growing delight.

Still singing and clutching onto each other, the pair decided to make for a pillar bearing the sacred vestal flame that was three feet further up and embedded firmly in the stage floor.

At this point matters were considerably improved by the entrance of the chorus. They also decided to make for the fixed pillar which was now becoming quite crowded.

Happily, this chorus of centurions, gladiators and vestal virgins decided to form a daisy chain of mutual support, leading from the pillar across the stage with everyone clutching on to each other until all were accommodated. The audience was so moved by this performance that most were weeping and some struggled for breath.

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Unexpected Consequences

52 Last Suppers

The least successful stage set

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