Feast Your Eyes on These Paintings From the Impressionist Era

France has long derived a portion of its national pride from its culinary sophistication, but during the late 19th century—a time of war and social upheaval, as well as the cultural flowering of the Belle Époque—the issue of food could sometimes be fraught. Aristocrats feasted while peasants toiled and poor Parisians starved, and new delicacies like the banana debuted against a backdrop of imperialist adventures. To artists like Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin, all of it was also rich fodder for a new approach to painting, showcased in the play of light over a silver pitcher or the slimy floors of a bustling fish market.

“This is as much a social history as it is the story of food,” says Mark Scala, chief curator at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, which in late January will host the traveling exhibition “Farm to Table,” featuring some 50 Impressionist canvases and sculptures that depict markets and gardens, farmers and gastronomes, abundance and penury. Food, that universal human obsession, connects people from all walks of life, Scala notes, making it a “portal” through which artists and museumgoers can explore not only human appetites but also darker questions of class, conflict and conquest.