Chocolate box art originally referred literally to decorations on chocolate

Chocolate

Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...

 box

Box

Box describes a variety of containers and receptacles for permanent use as storage, or for temporary use often for transporting contents. The word derives from the Greek πύξος , "box, boxwood"....

es. Over the years the terminology has developed and is now applied broadly as a descriptive, but often pejorative, term to describe painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

s and design

Design

Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...

s that are warm, idealistic and sentimental.

Using his own paintings of children, flowers and holiday scenes Richard Cadbury

Richard Cadbury

Richard Cadbury was the second son of the Quaker John Cadbury, founder of Cadbury's cocoa and chocolate company....

, the son of the founder of Cadbury's, introduced such designs to his chocolate boxes in the late 19th century.

Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...

's paintings have been described as "chocolate box" and have been derided by the likes of Degas

Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...

 and Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...

 for being happy, inoffensive scenes. Constable

John Constable

John Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection...

's landscapes have also been so described.

Aelbert Cuyp

Aelbert Cuyp

Aelbert Jacobsz Cuyp was one of the leading Dutch landscape painters of the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century. The most famous of a family of painters, the pupil of his father Jacob Gerritsz...

's River Landscape (1660), despite being widely regarded as his best work, has been criticised as having "chocolate box blandness". Fred Swan

Fred Swan

Fred Swan is an American painter who resides in Barre, Vermont. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy, and then taught mathematics at Spaulding High School....

 is a modern day proponent of chocolate box paintings as, to his detractors, is Thomas Kinkade

Thomas Kinkade

Thomas Kinkade is an American painter of popular and commercial realistic, bucolic, and idyllic subjects. He is notable for the mass marketing of his work as printed reproductions and other licensed products via The Thomas Kinkade Company...

.

The term has also been applied to sculpture

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

. A young couple standing locked in an embrace forms the centrepiece for the new £800m St Pancras International

St Pancras railway station

St Pancras railway station, also known as London St Pancras and since 2007 as St Pancras International, is a central London railway terminus celebrated for its Victorian architecture. The Grade I listed building stands on Euston Road in St Pancras, London Borough of Camden, between the...

 station in central London

Central London

Central London is the innermost part of London, England. There is no official or commonly accepted definition of its area, but its characteristics are understood to include a high density built environment, high land values, an elevated daytime population and a concentration of regionally,...

. Entitled The Meeting Place, the £1m sculpture is by Briton

British people

The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

 Paul Day

Paul Day (sculptor)

Paul Day, born in 1967, is a British sculptor. His high-relief sculptures in terracotta, resin, and bronze have been exhibited widely in Europe and his work is known for its unusual approach to perspective.Major works include:...

who admitted, "Some will say it is a chocolate box sculpture".