A bite of Bolles or not?

Over time I'm slowly learning from blogging is that it can be pretty near impossible to predict when a post strikes a chord (or nerve) or not, or when a particular Bolles cover will become a hit with people who visit this blog. I thought yesterday's recipe, which combined a melange of spicy and savory Bolles flavors carefully blended together with some obscure quotes dug up from heirloom newspapers would get a review or two. But I was wrong and that's ok because Google analytics told me there still was a good number of visitors who sampled the day's menu. Yet, there have been some posts I admittedly tossed together at the last second that have have worked up some appetites. Can you tell I'm not a very good cook?

What's on the menu for today is to inquire of your opinion about the above illustration. I first spotted it yesterday in an article in the New York Times and immediately my Bolles radar started blipping. After I downloaded the color version I'm even more intrigued (Don't bother with the Mars web site, it's infuriating!). As I look at this illustration there are several potential Bolles signatures at work. First, there are the flat areas of pure color with little obvious brush work aside from some broad flourishes, something evident in a lot of Bolles' food illustration, which by the way is a notoriously difficult specialty. Think of it this way, create too simple an illustration and it looks fake; the viewer isn't hungry. Overworking is akin to overcooking; you leach out all the flavor and freshness. Bolles really had the recipe down pat; the superfluous details were minimized but not to the point where the product lost its punch. Next, the color, though a bit too monochromatic, has the typical Bolles fidelity to the product. No painterly application of contrasting tone or excessive applicaiton of texture here. Last and most intriguing this illustration has a mathematical precision to it that is so typical of Bolles. The ribbons of chocolate that drape the bars have a weight and flow to them that makes you believe it's chocolate, not something merely thick and brown. But all this is my opinion, and as you well know by now I have a biased palette when it comes to what Bolles is serving. So I'm asking you to take a nibble and ltell me what you think.


P.S., The next post will be a while, as I'll be away for a bit or two.