Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Giuseppe Arcimboldo or Arcimboldi or Arcimboldus (Milan, 1527 - Milan, 1593), is a painter mannerist, famous as author of many portraits suggested by fruits, plants or animals astutely laid out.

Biography

He was born in Milan in the year 1527 and would result from a family of painters.

It is at 22 years that it starts to be made known, while working with his/her father, craftsman painter with the cathedral of Milan. It builds paperboards of stained glasses then. Quickly, it is pointed out by Ferdinand de Bohème which orders five blazons for the cathedral to him. Its fame starts to extend. It is destined for Prague in 1562 with the service of Ferdinand I {{er}} of the Holy roman Empire to be the portraitist of the imperial family. There exist thus several traditional tables allotted to the painter, without any certainty, most known being its Portrait of Maximilien II of Habsbourg and its family which would have been painted about 1563. It is shortly after its arrival with the service of Ferdinand Ier which Giuseppe Arcimboldo begins first the four seasons series, and lets burst a pictorial style surprising: “heads made up” caricatural portraits ( ghiribizzi ) or allegorical formed of a juxtaposition of fruits, vegetables, plants, symbolizing the seasons or the trades. This work causes a considerable passion at the court. It will paint other some four seasons series in 1572 and 1573 (a four seasons series is with the Louvre, of which the Fall gone back to 1573, ordered by the emperor Maximilien II of Habsbourg to be offered to the Auguste voter of Saxony).

Other portraits mix animal or objects: the four elements ( Fire and Water of 1566, are with the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna) or personifications of trades ( the Librarian , the Gardener ).

Apart from some portraits, it has then as a principal task to enrich the famous Wunderkamern , cabinets of art and curiosities of the emperors Maximilien II and Rodolphe II. Endowed with an inventive and clever spirit, he sees himself entrusting the organization of the princely festivals (there remains of many drawings of costumes or tanks) and it is named to advise artistic for the formation of the imperial collections. As from 1565, its name appears in imperial accountancy. It is characterized in particular by the invention from a colorimetric method of musical transcription.

In 1587, it obtains from Rodolphe II the favor to turn over to Italy to finish its days there, promising to continue to paint. Flora will be one of her last tables.

Withdrawn in Milan, it is promoted with the rank of Count Palatine in 1591 and there dies in 1593.

Style of its compositions

If one regards Arcimboldo as an innovator in the systematization of his portraits, it is necessary to remember that at his time there exists already a tradition, since the antique, of bacchic or hellenistic masks , made of elements taken in Nature.

Several of the artists of the Rebirth, of which Léonard de Vinci and Jerome Bosch, had already been interested in the monstrous facies, the portraits deformed by plays of ice, like with the compositions containing diverted elements. Paintings of Arcimboldo are thus in conformity with the inclinations mannerists.

Its masterpiece is obviously its portrait of Rodolphe II in Vertumne (Greek god of harvests and abundance) gone back to 1591.

If Arcimboldo did not have of pupil, it inspired by many copyists in his time and the kind of the made up heads remains with. It is taken again at the 19th century by the caricaturists, in particular for the figures of Napoleon i, Napoleon III and the Belgian sovereigns, Léopold Ier and Léopold II.

It is redécouvert at the 20th century by the surrealist followers of the visual word game.

On the other hand, it is wrongly that one allots to Arcimboldo anthropomorphic landscapes whose origin seems Flemish.

Seasons

It is about a series of four tables painted by Arcimboldo in 1563 and offered to Maximilien II in 1569, accompanied by the four elements (painted in 1566). Y is joined a poem of Giovanni Battista Fonteo (1546-1580) which into explicit the allegorical direction.

Each table consists of a portrait of profile, composed of elements recalling the season. the Winter thus looks at Spring and the Summer , the Fall .

Original version, remains only the Winter and the Summer , exposed to Vienna. One of the most known versions those of the Musée of Louvre, copies are made by the painter at the request of Maximilien II to make gift with Auguste of Saxony of it. The tables are characterized by one framed floral which did not exist on the version first.

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