A touch of artistic inspiration drawn from my autumn fruit studies and other culinary illustrations.
Today, we’re used to seeing photos with crisp focal points and soft, blurred backgrounds. But the use of blur in visual art goes back long before photography—it’s present in many classical paintings.
Take, for example, this close-up of Vermeer’s The Milkmaid (1632–1675), housed in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. In the painting’s foreground, where the milkmaid pours milk beside a simple bread basket, the details appear vibrant and inviting—almost appetizing—even though they’re gently blurred. Vermeer’s unique technique, applying small dots of color and light with his brush, creates a subtle, almost photographic blur effect.
Interestingly, many classical artists—including, possibly, Vermeer—are thought to have used the camera obscura, an optical tool that projected images onto a flat surface. While this is a confirmed technique for some painters, it remains a hypothesis for Vermeer.
Either way, this blend of dots and blurs is a rich source of inspiration for culinary illustration. I’m especially drawn to its soft, luminous quality, which I recreate in my own work to evoke the kind of gentle elegance premium food brands look for in their visual identity.
