Published 16 December 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2888
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2888

Analysis

Christmas 2008: Food and Drink

Fantastic feeding funnels

¹ Department of Adult and Continuing Education, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G3 6NH, ² Southern General Hospital, Glasgow

Eating is a common theme in art but few images depict artificial nutrition, say Maureen and Richard Park

As the festive season gets underway, many will turn their attention to the fine art of eating. In December 2007 a poll estimated that on Christmas Day the British public would each gorge themselves on 6000 kcal (25.10 MJ) of culinary delights.¹ The term "gavage," from the French "to gorge," is used to describe the force feeding of ducks and geese for the production of pâté de foie gras using funnels. For many centuries funnels have also been utilised for the force feeding of prisoners and psychiatric patients. Similar devices have been used to provide artificial feeding for patients who, severely troubled by anorexia and nausea, may well have considered their treatment as a form of force-feeding. Although the act of eating is a common theme in art, few images of artificial nutrition exist, and in particular the use of feeding funnels.

Frida Kahlo (1907-54)

One person who experienced the distress of requiring assistance with feeding was the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Now acknowledged as one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Kahlo used her paintings as a means of expressing the physical and emotional torment she experienced during her life. The centenary celebrations marking her birth came to a close at the end of September 2008, with a major exhibition of her paintings that had toured to Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. On display was a remarkable image of a feeding funnel, in Without Hope (fig 1).

View larger version (133K): [in this window] [in a new window] [PowerPoint Slide for Teaching]   Fig 1 Frida Kahlo: Without Hope, 1945 (oil on masonite) Museo Dolores Olmedo Patino, Mexico City

 
Kahlo experienced ill health for most of her life. Even before being involved in a bus crash in 1925 at the age of 18, Kahlo walked with a limp as a result of a deformed, shortened right leg from mild spina bifida, and polio when aged 6.² At the time of the crash she suffered fractures to her spine, pelvis, ribs, and right leg. During the next 29 years until her death she endured a medical odyssey in Mexico and abroad, seeking cures and treatments for chronic back pain and recurrent ulceration, pain, and infection of the right leg. Throughout this time she was thought to have undergone "at least 32 operations, most on her spine and right foot and prescribed 28 surgical spinal corsets."³ Several of the procedures may have been unnecessary as reflex sympathetic dystrophy could have been the cause of her chronic pain.²

Information on Kahlo’s exact medical problems at the time of painting Without Hope is limited, and it is uncertain when in 1945 it was completed. Her health had been deteriorating for several years, mainly exacerbated by severe back and leg pain. In 1941, in a letter to her long term friend Dr Leo Eloesser, Kahlo mentioned that she had anorexia and dyspepsia: "I don’t eat enough—I smoke a lot—and something strange! I drink no cockteltitos or cocktelazos anymore. I feel something in my tummy that hurts and I have a continuous desire to burp. (Pardon me—burpted!!). My digestion is of the vil tizanada [the dastardly tippler]."³

In 1944 Dr Alejandro Zimbron prescribed complete bed rest and a steel corset, as illustrated in Kahlo’s painting The Broken Column. At that time she was described as having no appetite and had lost 13 lb (6 kg) in weight, and she was ordered to eat puréed food every two hours.³ By 1945 her digestive symptoms (most likely multifactorial due to reflux, chronic pain, poor diet, and excessive alcohol) were causing such concern to her family that she was being fed by a funnel, which Kahlo may have considered a form of force feeding.⁴

The powerful impact of Without Hope defies its size, only 28 cm x 36 cm. The setting is a stark, barren landscape illuminated by both the moon and the sun. Far removed from the reassuring surroundings of her family home, a thin, frail Kahlo lies in bed, her arms under a cover decorated with stylised cells, her head inclined, and her eyes staring out at the viewer as tears fall down her cheeks. In her mouth is a monstrous sized funnel, filled to overflowing with dead animals, poultry, and fish, and resting on top of these is a skull made from sugar and inscribed with her name. The funnel is so large that it has to be supported by a wooden frame, similar to the easel that Kahlo used when painting in bed. On the reverse of the picture is an inscription: "A mí no me queda ya ni la menor esperanza . . . Todo se mueve al compás de lo que encierra la panza." (Not the least hope remains to me . . . Everything moves in time with what the belly contains.)³

As in so many of Kahlo’s paintings, the imagery of Without Hope is complex. Hererra, her biographer, has identified the patterning on Kahlo’s bed cover as cells with nuclei or unfertilised eggs and linked them to the sun and the moon in the background as "opposite worlds of the microscope and the solar system."³ The sugar skull is a direct reference to the Mexican festival of the Day of the Dead, in which an ancient Aztec tradition has been blended with the Christian observance of All Saints’ Day. At the graves, families bring gifts, food, flowers, and sugar skulls. In Without Hope the shape and colour of the large sun recalls the orange marigolds associated with this festival, and the sugar skull—given to both the living and the dead—may reflect Kahlo’s state of mind and body as she hovers between the two worlds.

The offering of food made during the Day of the Dead festivities, often a cornucopia of those most favoured by the dead, is in stark contrast to Kahlo’s painted "horn of plenty." Kahlo’s niece Isolda has recalled how her family "would blend meats, fruits, and vegetables and feed her by means of a funnel."⁴ But Kahlo chose to remove all reference to the bounties of nature or of puréed food and instead painted only dead, rotting creatures in her grotesque funnel, as if to emphasise its (and her own) sacrificial nature. Her depiction of funnel feeding does not seem to relate to any known Mayan or Aztec ritual. Rather, it has been linked directly to illustrations in Alfonso Toro’s La Familia Carvajal, a copy of which remains in Kahlo’s library.⁵ The book, an account of the Inquisition’s persecution of the Jews in 16th century Mexico, included several scenes of women and men lying stretched out and undergoing water torture by funnel. Evidence from the diary that she began in 1944 makes it certain that she had studied this book. In Without Hope Kahlo has fused these influences to create a shocking and disturbing surrealist vision of her own suffering.

Hieronymus Bosch (c1450-1516)

Kahlo was a great admirer of the celebrated Dutch master Hieronymus Bosch, who was one of the earliest artists to use the funnel as a symbol, often associated with satire, in his fantastical paintings. One example is to be found in The Cure of Folly (fig 2). The open air surgical drama is set in an idyllic rural landscape. Surrounding the circular image is an elaborate painted inscription, translated as, "Master, take away the stone, my name is Lubbert Das." In the foreground the fool Hubbert sits in a chair, subjecting himself to an operation by a quack to remove the stone of madness from his head. Observed by a monk and a nun, the surgeon appears to be removing a tulip instead of a stone, a reference to the removal of Hubbert’s finances (the Dutch word for tulip also meant money). One of the most unusual details in this bizarre image is the character of the surgeon, as he wears an inverted metal funnel on his head. Historians have offered different interpretations of the funnel’s significance: Linfert views it as a signal, obvious to the viewer but not to the gullible patient, that the surgeon is a trickster⁶, whereas De Tolnay identifies the object as the traditional "funnel of wisdom."⁷ By inverting it Bosch may be implying that the wearer is as much a fool as the patient, because knowledge has not been "funnelled" into him; rather, it has poured over his head without being absorbed.

View larger version (115K): [in this window] [in a new window] [PowerPoint Slide for Teaching]   Fig 2 Hieronymus Bosch: The Cure of Folly, c1490 (oil on panel) Prado, Madrid

 
But the funnel may serve another purpose: it identifies the surgeon with one of the cardinal sins—greed. Trickery and deceit for monetary gain were considered forms of greed. An inverted funnel also appears twice in Bosch’s later triptych, The Temptation of St Anthony. In the central panel, to the right of the kneeling figure of the saint, the funnel is worn by a fantasy creature who stares out at the viewer. And a funnel adorns the head of a similar creature placed prominently in the foreground of the left hand wing of the triptych. This creature is wearing a red tunic and skates, and the word for idle is inscribed on a piece of paper in its beak, identifying the creature as the sin of sloth. Bosch’s great admirer, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c1525-69), who began his career by making engravings of Bosch’s paintings, may have been inspired by such images for his representation of the giant Gula, the sin of gluttony. The inverted funnel sitting on Gula’s head has an owl perched on the top, a small square window, and a chimney billowing smoke. Gula’s mouth is open wide to allow bags of grain to be emptied inside. It is possible that both Bosch and Bruegel used the funnel as an attribute of the seven deadly sins.

Francisco de Goya (1746-1828)

Bosch’s use of the funnel as a motif in The Cure of Folly may also have inspired a drawing, Gran Disparate (Great Folly, fig 3), by the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya.⁸ Goya’s long career spanned one of the most turbulent periods in Spain’s history. As court painter to Charles IV he witnessed the intrigue of the church and state and the atrocities of war during the French occupation of Spain (1808-14). To escape from the repressive regime that followed the restoration of Ferdinand VII, Goya left Madrid in 1824 and spent the remaining few years of his life as an exile in Bordeaux. As with Kahlo, Goya experienced periods of ill health that impacted on his art. He was left permanently deaf as a result of illness in 1792 (possibly the rare Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada syndrome—temporary inflammation of the uveal tract associated with deafness).⁹ In 1819 a second period of ill health resulted in his famous painting Self Portrait with Dr Arrieta.

View larger version (112K): [in this window] [in a new window] [PowerPoint Slide for Teaching]   Fig 3 Francisco de Goya: Gran Disparate, c1824-7

 
Sometime between 1815 and 1824 Goya completed a set of 22 etchings satirising human foolishness, Los Disparates (Follies), which were not published until 1864. The black chalk drawing, Gran Disparate, while similar in theme and mood to Los Disparates, is found in an album of sketches dating from Goya’s time in Bordeaux. In the foreground, a large decapitated male figure sits on a chair, with his head resting on a table beside him. As an old woman watches, a man standing behind the figure pours liquid from a jug into a funnel placed in the severed trunk. Simultaneously the headless body is spoon feeding its own head. The title, Gran disparate, is written below the image, the meaning of which is unclear. As with so much of Goya’s art, this drawing is open to interpretation. Is the central figure a symbol of the cardinal sin of gluttony, feeding itself and being fed even after it can no longer derive any benefit from such nourishment? Or, as the title implies, is Goya returning to the pessimistic mood of Los Disparates to point to the misguided folly of Spain attempting to survive after cutting itself off from its liberal thinkers, writers, and artists, many of whom, like Goya, had become exiles from their homeland? Whatever may be the meaning of Gran Disparate, Goya uses the feeding funnel to dramatic effect.

René-Primevère Lesson (1794-1849)

In these previous images the feeding funnel served as only one element within a more complex composition. It is rarely the sole object within the picture. However, in 1824 the French surgeon and naturalist René-Primevère Lesson made a pen and ink drawing of a wooden feeding funnel during a voyage to New Zealand (fig 4). Although Kahlo used her imagination to create a fantastic funnel, there was no need for Lesson to do so because the object he drew was already elaborately carved with interlocking curvilinear motifs. Ta moko, Maori tattooing, created deep grooves in the face, which were stained with a sooty pigment.¹⁰ Puréed food was passed through the feeding funnel, called a korere, to the men, who were prevented from eating solid food due not only to extensive facial scarring but also to taboos associated with the touching of food during the tattooing ceremony. Lesson’s drawing and examples of surviving korere in Te Papa, New Zealand’s National Museum, reveal how these functional objects were transformed by the skill of Maori craftsmen into works of outstanding beauty.

View larger version (104K): [in this window] [in a new window] [PowerPoint Slide for Teaching]   Fig 4 Maori feeding funnel

 

Honoré Daumier (1808-79)

In contrast to the Maori korere, the feeding funnel that appears in Le Médecin Hydropathe (fig 5), a print by the French artist Honoré Daumier, has no ornamentation. Although produced perhaps only 20 years after Goya’s Gran Disparate, Daumier’s humorous image is far removed from Goya’s profound pathos. During his often turbulent career, Daumier produced almost 4000 lithographs satirising contemporary Parisian life and manners. A frequent contributor to the illustrated newspapers La Caricature and Le Charivari, he devoted more than 100 of his prints to the subject of the medical profession. In Le Médecin Hydropathe, Daumier pokes fun at the current fashion for hydropathy—the cold water cure. The patient, wrapped in his dressing gown, sits in his armchair, his feet soaking in a water bath. His head is being tilted back by a physician, who has inserted a large funnel into the patient’s mouth. While one assistant pours the contents of a bucket of water into the funnel, another is entering the room carrying yet two more buckets ready for consumption. The accompanying text, in translation, reads: "Today, two bucketsful will do . . . tomorrow you can bring four.— Ah, what a fine doctor! . . . One can’t like water too much . . . (aside) I’m only afraid it will end up by killing his taste for food forever!"¹¹

View larger version (157K): [in this window] [in a new window] [PowerPoint Slide for Teaching]   Fig 5 Honoré Daumier: Le Médecin Hydropathe, 1842

 
Although the main treatment consisted of external application of cold water with bandaging to induce sweating, patients were also encouraged to drink large volumes of pure, cold water. For comic effect Daumier has exaggerated the quantity of prescribed water because "the patient would be advised to drink as much as his stomach could support without inconvenience—not less than twelve glasses a day, and up to twenty or thirty."¹² Within 10 years, after several deaths associated with hydropathy, Daumier’s prophetic "killing his taste for food forever" would seem less comical.

Conclusion

These examples illustrate how an everyday object such as a feeding funnel can be transformed by the artist’s imagination and creativity. In the hands of Bosch, Goya, Maori craftsmen, and Daumier the funnel becomes a symbol of satire, pathos, ritual, and humour. For Kahlo, however, the funnel has a deeply personal connection with her own suffering. Without Hope, Kahlo’s only representation of nutritional support, remains one of the most powerful images of a "fantastic feeding funnel" in art.

Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2888

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Competing interests: None declared.

Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

References

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