30/11/2024
Welcoming the arrival of Summer with another of Guiseppe Arcimboldos Four Seasons paintings.
Giuseppe Arcimboldo (5 April 1527 – 11 July 1593) was an Italian Renaissance painter renowned for his imaginative portrait heads, which were composed entirely of objects like fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books. While his traditional religious paintings have largely been forgotten, his unique portraits, where human faces are crafted from natural elements such as plants, fruits, sea creatures, and tree roots, captivated his contemporaries and continue to intrigue audiences today.
The Seasons or The Four Seasons is a set of four paintings produced in 1563, 1572 and 1573.
Summer is depicted by a woman facing right, and is made up, not of flowers, but of fruits and vegetables. Cherries adorn the border of her hair and also make up her upper lip; her cheek is made of a peach, her nose of a cucumber, her ear of an eggplant, and her eyebrow of an ear of wheat. Her dress is made of straw, with, on the Louvre copy, the inscription GIUSEPPE ARCIMBOLDO F (F standing for FECIT) on the collar and the year 1563 on the shoulder. An artichoke decorates her chest.
Once upon a time I had all four (copies - sadly) hanging on my wall. They fascinated me for many years.
