Is that an Old Master painting - or Beyonce’s Master Cleanse?

Is that an Old Master painting - or Beyonce’s Master Cleanse? Photographer recreates celebrity diets as still lifes

A photographer has recreated the wacky diet plans of the rich and famous as a series of artfully shot still lifes, shot in the style of Old Master paintings.

Dan Bannino, who is based between Italy and France, studied and reproduced the restrictive diets of Gwyneth Paltrow and Beyonce Knowles, the hedonistic table fares of Kate Moss and even the banquet spread of King Henry VIII.

'My aim was to capture the beauty that lies in this terrible constriction of diets and deprivation', explains Mr Bannino. '[And] to show how this weirdness hasn’t changed even since the 15th century.

'I started this project because I’m fascinated and obsessed by food', Mr Bannino tells The Times.

He says he shot the table scenes in the style of an Old Master's painting - pre-19th Century art which is characterized by its extreme technical skill - to lend the photographs 'importance'.

'I wanted to make them significant, like classic works of arts that are becoming more and more weighty as they grow older', he says.

Mr Bannino researched the bizarre diets of his nine subjects in magazines and on the Internet and shot the tables in the self-made studio he has created in his Italian apartment.

'I'm lucky enough to live in a quite big place with high ceilings and loads of natural light', he tells the publication. 'Light is extremely important to me, as it was for painters like Caravaggio.'

Each photograph took several hours for him to set up; dressing the tables, arranging the food and perfecting the background light.

'When I explain to [people] that I haven't used any post-production, they're terribly surprised', he reveals.

The diets portrayed by Mr Bannino vary dramatically. Beyonce, for example, famously credited a 14-day run of the Master Cleanse Diet, with helping her lose enough weight to perform her role in Dreamgirls.

The Master Cleanse is a liquid diet consisting of nothing but lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper, salt, and laxative herbal tea, and purports to cleanse and detoxify the body while reportedly stimulating healthy tissue growth.

'I was cranky', Beyonce admitted to Oprah about her emotional state while on diet. 'People were eating Krispy Kreme Donuts around me.'

Mr Bannino has teasingly included a few rolls of toilet paper to the table as a nod to the unpleasant side effects of the laxative tea, and scattered an array of Beyonce-worthy gold bling on the table.

Gwyneth Paltrow's table is spread with a vegetable-heavy array of highly nutritious food, set on blue checkered table and strewn with matching china. A die-hard promoter of her strict, detoxifying diet, Ms Paltrow has authored four healthy-living cookbooks, and runs a popular diet and lifestyle blog called Goop.

On the other end of the crunchy-living spectrum is Kate Moss's hedonistic array of effects. Notably lacking any food at all; as Ms Moss infamously once tossed the statement: 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels'.

Her shiny glass table holds half empty bottles of vodka and Coca-Cola, a champagne cork, a tray of freshly chopped white 'powder' (flour for the purposes of legality), and a crystal ashtray littered with used cigarette butts. Poignantly, a sharp-edged VIP badge sits neatly in the center.

Simon Cowell's 'Life enhancing' table is the purveyor of all things faddish; seemingly a reflection of the music mogul's never-ending quest for eternal youth. He apparently eats fresh fruit delivered via airfreight and drinks up to two smoothies a day made from exotic plants.

He is also said to use a drip that boosts his levels of magnesium and vitamins C, for half an hour each week. And then there is the big tank of milk, which he reportedly bathes in.

Former president Bill Clinton's table is entitled 'Cabbage diet' and displays an array of leafy vegetables, set on a table cloaked in the American flag.

Faced with heart disease back in 2009, this Texan political heavyweight overhauled his diet and went completely vegan. 'I've stopped eating meat, cheese, milk, even fish. No dairy at all', he said of his new eating habits. 'I've lost 30 lbs and I have so much more energy now! I feel great.'

Eccentric art collector Charles Saatchi is said to have lost over 60 lbs by eating nine eggs a day for ten months.

Good job he was happily married to celebrity chef Nigella Lawson at the time, who said of her husband's diet: 'It was all about eggs, eggs and eggs, with an occasional slice of toast.'

For this shot, Mr Bannino placed a variety of eggy snacks on an elegant table with an nearly-empty glass of red wine - Mr Saatchi is said to truly love his grapes - and an imitation of Damien Hirst's famous Shark Tank artwork, which Mr Saatchi commissioned in 1991.

And next, a step back into the archives, as the photographer recreates the diet of ethereal poet Lord Byron, who lived in 19th Century England. According to historian Louise Foxcroft, who wrote for the BBC: 'His horror of being fat led to a shockingly strict diet.

Existing on biscuits and soda water or potatoes drenched in vinegar, he wore woolly layers to sweat off the pounds and measured himself obsessively.'

Lord Byron's table displays this restrictive diet, with two poetry books and a single rose in a vase - a nod to the romantic nature of his work - thrown in for good measure.

Henry VIII, the 16th Century British King who burned through a whopping six wives, was well-known for his voracious appetite and glutinous eating habits.

He regularly hosted opulent feasts like the one displayed in Mr Bannino's still life, prepared by his 200-strong kitchen staff; a whole wild boar, as well as half munched chicken, pork, rabbit and lamb's meat, served with exotic pomegranate and a hearty tumbler of spilling wine.

Last but not least, Luigi Cornaro; a 15th Century Venetian nobleman famous for his writings on nutrition. Finding himself near death at the age of 35, Mr Cornaro took the questionable advice of his doctors and adopted a rather peculiar diet plan.

His daily initial self-allowance was 14 oz of solid food and 17 oz of wine. He later reduced that intake to no more than an egg a day, but hung onto the booze. Amusingly, for naysayers, he didn't die until the ripe old age of 98, fast asleep in his rocking chair.

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