Epicure

" Epicure" by Francis Edmonds is a famous painting depicting a dining room. The simplicity of the setting of The Epicure obscures Edmonds’s debt to European art history. The first thing that grabs the attention in the painting is the plump man sitting at the table on the right side. Everything else – the meals already laid out on the table, the food and drink being brought by the other people, their clothes in comparison to the way the seated man is dressed – points to him being an Epicurist, as the painting’s title would suggest. The colours are relatively warm, thus making the room seem cosy and lived-in. Much like most other elements in this work of art, the lighting also makes the Epicurist the centre of attention – he as well as the items around him are the brightest parts of the painting, while the rest of it becomes darker and darker, the farther away from him it gets, in this way giving him a feeling of importance and at the same time dismissing anything and anyone else as something that does not matter.