Arcimboldo is an idiosyncratic artist known for his portraits composed of fruits, vegetables and other still lifes – an original invention that achieved instant success and inspired 20th century artists to deem him the Father of Surrealism.
Giuseppe Arcimboldo was born in Milan, the son of a painter Biagio. Under the patronage of Carlo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, his early career focused on ecclesiastical commissions, including work for the cathedral in Milan, Monza and Como. Nothing in his early work hints at the fantastical creations he would create for the Hapsburg court in Vienna and later in Prague.
First summoned in 1562 by Ferdinand I, Arcimboldo quickly rose to prominence within the Hapsburg court. In 1563 he produced his first composite heads, a series of the Four Seasons, including Spring (Madrid, Real Academia di San Fernando) and Summer (Vienna, Kunsthistorischesmuseum). Painted with utmost attention to detail, the still life details purposefully reveal imperfections and nature’s aberration. Though recorded as a portrait painter, the only surviving works firmly attributed to Arcimboldo are such composite types, typically conceived in sets of fours. A small number of these fantastical compositions are invertible, intended to be seen in both orientations as portrait or still life (Invertible Head as Basket of Fruit, private collection; l’Ortolano, Museo Civico Ala Ponzone, Cremona). A Lombard native, Arcimboldo ranks alongside Caravaggio as one of the earliest still-life painters from Italy.
While being humorous, it is thought that Arcimboldo’s inventive assemblages double as Hapsburg propaganda. These images suggest both the Hapsburg control of the natural world and by the use of visual humor show that the Emperor could both take and make a joke, essential attributes of the civilized prince. This interpretation is supported by the poetry of Giovanni Battista Fontana, a contemporary of the artist, which specifically describes Arcimboldo’s ‘portraits’ as allegories of Imperial Hapsburg rule.
Ferdinand I, brother of Emperor Charles V who abdicated in 1556, had moved from Spain to Vienna and it was there that Arcimboldo first worked for the Hapsburg court. In 1564, Ferdinand died and was succeeded as Emperor by Rudolf II. Rudolf, renowned as a collector and patron of mannerist art, moved his court to Prague where Arcimboldo followed him. One of his most celebrated portraits is Rudolf II as Vertumnus (Skokloster, Skolkoster Slott) painted in c.1591. By this time, Arcimboldo had returned to Milan where he remained for the rest of his life.
Selected artworks
Top 3 auction prices
2000
* There is only one fully-attributed painting by Giuseppe Arcimboldo sold in public auction in the last thirty years.
Books on Arcimboldo
Sylvia Ferino-Pagden, ed., Arcimboldo: Artista milanese tra Leonardo e Caravaggio, exh. cat. Milan, 2011.
Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Arcimboldo: Visual Jokes, Natural History, and Still-Life Painting, Chicago and London, 2009.
Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, The Mastery of Nature: Aspects of Art, Science, and Humanism in the Renaissance, Princeton, 1993.