Table Scenes in Illustration and Composition

Table scenes are notoriously difficult to film in TV and movies. Live action presents its own challenges, but static images of characters around tables aren’t exactly easy, either. They’re significantly easier when one side of the table has no one seated at it.

But tables are symbolically useful, too. A long table, with one person at each end, clearly conveys psychological distance. The ‘camera’ angle also says a lot about the relationship between characters.

Below is a collection of table scenes in art and illustration, showcasing various compositional choices.

American Boy Vintage Magazine – January 1932. As a young man digs into pie, his father shows him a newspaper advertisement saying ‘Team Must Diet’.

Ruskin Spear Tea Table

The Gruesome Cup, Fortunino Matania, 1942 (illustration for the March issue of Britannia and Eve magazine)

Paul Signac’s ‘The Dining Room’ (c1886)

Yuri Vasnetsov – Book Album (In Russian), Leningrad, 1984 cat at table

Fables by Arnold Lobel The Bad Kangaroo

Funny Bunny by Rachel Learnard illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen 1950

Marjorie Torrey

Honor C. Appleton for ‘Josephine’s Birthday’ (1900)

Francis Montague Holl (1845-1888, English) The Lord Gave and the Lord Hath Taken Away

January 1963 CALLING ALL GIRLS cover by Freeman Elliott. (The word ‘lingerie’ marketed at girls seems creepy now, except to people working in the clothing industry, in which lingerie simply describes a category of clothing, including nightwear, and isn’t necessarily sexy.)

Christmas Pictures 1922 Edmund Dulac

This image is from The Charms of Monique by Francis Price, 1959, art by Joseph Bowler. Unusually, one character is showing her back, but her back is part of the draw.

Perry Mason The Case Of The Footloose Doll The Saturday Evening Post, March 1958 by James Bingham

Felix Vallotton

Arkady Sher

The Fox Jumps Over The Parson’s Gate by Randolph Caldecott 1882 table scene

Arkady Sher

Pierre Bonnard (French painter, illustrator and printmaker) 1867-1947 At The Casino 1924

Georges De Geetere (Belgian painter) 1859-1929 ‘Portrait de la femme de l’artiste’, not dated

Carl Holsoe (1863-1935) Dutch

William Orpen’s ‘Homage to Manet,’ (1909)

Jessica Hayllar (English, 1858 – 1940) In this still life, the decorative table is the focus. Usually in still life the items on the table overshadow the table itself.

Cafetaria Dieter cover art for The Saturday Evening Post by Constantin Alajalof (1900-1987), November 10 1956

A vintage edition of Beauty and the Beast

KABOUTER LIEBRENG (1943) Piet Marée

Jessie WILLCOX SMITH Pease Porridge Hot

Portrait of translator and publisher Angus Davidson at Charleston by Duncan Grant, worked with Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press

Henry Ossawa Tanner (American, 1859–1937) The Thankful Poor 1894

Russian children’s book (1984)

The Children’s Party Book by Marion Jane Parker

Fairyland Annual 1969 Stories By Joan Fisher, Illustrations By Hutchings, 1968

Marjorie Torrey

Frederic Varady, Cosmopolitan, January 1960

The Hardy Tin Soldier ~ Illustrated by Rie Cramer (1887-1977)

Pot pourri (1874) by Charles Robert Leslie (English, 1794-1859)

Samuel Uhrdin (1886-1964). Other works in which Red, Blue and Yellow predominate

Richard Norris Brooke – A Pastoral Visit

Carnaval à l’hôtel Ferraille (1901) by Rémy Cogghe (Belgian, 1854-1935). Carnival at the Ferraille Hotel

Just Be Cool Jenna Sakai by Debbi Michiko Florence

The Doubtful Guest by Edward Gorey (London 1958)

Ernest is about to choke on a peach Edward Gorey’s ‘The Gashlygrumb Tinies’ (1963)

Summer afternoon Interior by Leonard Campbell Taylor (1874-1969)

Georges-Marie-Julien Girardot – Before the Wedding 1889

Frank Holl – The Lord Gave and the Lord Hath Taketh Away, Blessed Be the Name of the Lord 1868

John Singer Sargent, The Lunch Table (c. 1883 – 1896)

William Hemsley – Baking Day

The Breakfast Table (1884) by John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925)

Granny Torelli Makes Soup by Sharon Creech

Lisbeth Zwerger – Dwarf Nose

Baby’s Mother Goose Pat-a-cake 1948, illustrated by Aurelius Battaglia

Jack Kilgour’s ‘The Whelk Stall.’ (1939)

Patrick William Adam (British, 1854 – 1929)

‘The Fish Eaters,’ (1946) Gerard Dillon

Men of Brains 1909 Grape-nuts

Yellow Dinette 1952

DER ZAUN (1969) Jan Balet Mexican

Alfred Kappes (1850–1994)

Marie-Madeleine FRANC-NOHAIN [1878-1942] Alphabet In Pictures 1933

Polish illustrator Zdzisław Witwicki (1921-2019), like many children’s illustrators, makes use of the off-kilter perspective of Cubism.

Still life with lamp and herring painting by David Shterenberg, Soviet Russia, 1920

The Story of Doctor Doolittle 1920, Hugh Lofting, farewell feast

This illustration is by British artist Tom Barling, and is from a 1970s edition of “Thirteen O’Clock” by Enid Blyton. I suspect Barling intended the table to serve as white space for text, but the composition is not utilised in this way in the final publication. (The reason I think this is because there are various compositional ‘mistakes’ in the book.) However, I still really like the result of the white table cloth serving as white space offsetting very busy (beautiful) linework.

Waffles Doudon – Lyon, art by Francisco Nicolas Tamagno

Gulliver’s Voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), illustration by Percy Angelo Staynes. Her diversion was to see me eat in miniature.