Strawberries at market--Food 1941 - 1945

Robert Frank's black and white photograph captures a market scene overflowing with baskets of strawberries. The strawberry, a humble fruit, is laden with symbolic weight. In medieval art, it appears frequently in religious paintings, symbolizing righteousness and spiritual merit, often placed near the Virgin Mary to denote purity. But look closer. Here, the strawberries are not singular symbols of virtue; they are abundant, massed, and commodified. A similar abundance of fruit is seen in Caravaggio’s still lifes, where ripe, almost decaying fruits suggest the transience of earthly pleasures. The people in Frank's photograph, gazing upon the strawberries, remind me of viewers contemplating Vanitas paintings – a moment of reflection on life’s ephemeral nature. This photograph is more than a depiction of food; it’s a meditation on desire, consumption, and the cyclical nature of symbols as they are recontextualized across time. The strawberry, once a sacred emblem, becomes a marker of modern appetites, subtly echoing deeper, timeless human concerns.