Coffee Culture in Art

A Turkish Coffee-House, Constantinople, Amadeo Preziosi, 1954 Pencil and Watercolour heightened with blue and white

It seems fitting to begin with an artwork that captures the origins of coffee culture. A Turkish Coffee House, Constantinople is a beautiful watercolour, created in 1854 by Amadeo Preziosi. An artist of noble Maltese birth, Preziosi’s work became known due to the buying and dispersing of them as souvenirs by travellers from the West.

Coffee is believed to have been born on the Ethiopian Plateau, but the coffee culture we are familiar with today is understood to have blossomed on the Arabian Peninsula. Culminating in the ‘Coffee House’ of Ottoman Turkey, which we see as Preziosi’s subject matter in this delightful sketch.

Fascinated by the cosmopolitan characters of 19th century Constantinople, Preziosi depicts an array of races and cultures meeting inside the opulent setting of a baroque coffee house. It is a feast for the eyes, including merchants, musicians and even a whirling dirvish filling multiple rooms. Busy but not chaotic, they are united by one thing; the rich dark liquid they all drink.

The instruments used to make said coffee have also been clearly included in the composition. Reinforcing the integral part that coffee plays in bringing such a group together. The result of which being the sharing of stories and skills, in a wonderfully romantic setting.

Preziosi’s use of the colours blue and white in this drawing is just as captivating as the scene itself. It is a brilliant example of how less is certainly more and the way in which the absence of something can accentuate where it does so exist. If you examine the composition closely, it is predominantly uncoloured. However, the way pigment is employed by Preziosi makes the piece come to life.

Blue is not only used as tonal detailing in garments and the water of the fountain, but also in the shadows of the background, doorways and arches. Similarly with his use of white, the picture is brought together by the simplest strokes. A dash in a turban, a stroke across a sleeve and a mark erupting from the fountain, used to keep the house cool. It is simple yet vibrant and utterly absorbing.

Coffee in Everyday Life 

Paul Cezanne, Woman with a Coffee Pot, 1895, Oil on Canvas

As we have seen in the previous painting, the acts of drinking coffee and socialising have gone hand in hand from pretty much the beginning of its story. However, a coffee to start the day, or as a break on one’s own, is another familiar moment that so many people experience on a daily basis.

Cezanne’s 1895 painting Woman with a Coffee Pot is a perfect example of this solitary venture. It is also one that highlights how fundamental and commonplace coffee related objects are in everyday life. Against a simple background, a woman sits with a face of serious resolve, her gaze does not connect with the viewer and she appears rigid. Next to her a coffee cup and spoon and a coffee pot perch, equally frozen.

The woman, believed to be an employee of Cezanne’s family home, is painted in a stylistically simple manner. As is the cup, spoon and pot. This is believed to be a choice of Cezanne’s, in order to try and capture the human form and its accompaniments as a still life rather than a portrait. His choice of subject matter exhibits coffee as part of the fabric that makes up the mundane and the everyday.

A Canvas of Blue

In this piece the colour blue dominates. The woman’s dress is the focus of Cezanne’s palette. A deep rich blue that mirrors the sturdiness of the women whilst emphasising the stillness of the scene. The cup is the brightest white on the canvas, highlighting its importance but with a blue detailing that unifies it with the rest of the piece.

The mostly beige background is accented with strokes of blue. A floral wallpaper gently emerging from the left of the composition adds the lightest touch of femininity.

The piece feels intimate and reflective. It shows the pause for a moment of peace, amongst the chaos of life, that many of us frequently seek. Coffee and the break that it can provide us with are celebrated in a mastery of form.

Contemporary Coffee Culture 

Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942, Oil on Canvas

Going out for a coffee in the modern day might not quite be the collision of creative arts and people that it once was in Ottoman Turkey, but the contemporary cafe and coffee scene is one that continues to thrive. The ritual of meeting and spending time with others over a coffee is something that holds a highly important place in many people’s social and working lives.

However, in a total juxtaposition to Preziosi’s coffee house, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks gives us a very different representation of a coffee based environment. Instead, in Hopper’s 1942 painting, the viewer is given a window into the loneliness of late-night New York, where three customers sit drinking coffee in an all-night diner.

A shared endeavour of solitary people, each living in their own worlds whilst existing in a communal space. Coffee being the centrifugal component that allows people to still come together in their own personal quiet contemplation.

The use of blue in this work is indicative of the atmosphere, not only due to the nighttime setting but perhaps reflective of the shadowy headspace the diners may find themselves in. Contrasted by the bright yellow diner light, the simple exteriors in the piece are deep and melancholic. The suits of the men also so dark they could fade into the night as soon as they step foot out of the door and into the street.

Nighthawks is a romantic and enigmatic work that shows another side to society. One from Hopper’s incredible imagination, yet also one that revolves around the everyday comfort and security found in a cup of coffee.

Honouring Coffee

Since it is very obvious how important and varied a role coffee has played in an array of cultures over the last few centuries, it therefore makes perfect sense that we should honour coffee with beautiful vessels to drink it from.

Here at the Blue & White company were thrilled to have recently released a wonderful new range of ceramics, each piece a work of art, hand painted by a Portuguese artist.   So if this journal has inspired you to make the time you spend drinking your coffee even more special, then please do go and enjoy browsing them!

Serenity Blue Espresso Mugs by the Blue & White Company