Pages

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Arcimboldo's Composite Floral and Faunal Portraits
















Archimboldo, Autumn



Painting by Giuseppe Arcimboldo













Giuseppe Arcimboldo - The Autumn



Giuseppe Arcimboldo - The Cook



Giuseppe Arcimboldo - The Cook



Giuseppe Arcimboldo The Four Seasons in one Head






















Giuseppe Arcimboldo Der Herbst

The following site contains expandable thumbnails of all Arcimboldo's floral and faunal portraits.



Giuseppe Arcimboldo aus einer Serie der Vier Jahreszeiten



Giuseppe Arcimboldo - The Autumn







The allegorical portrait Flora the Nymph by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, painted in oil on wood panel, 73cm x 56cm, around 1591. 
Arcimboldo, (1526 - 1593), began his career as an artist in the glass workshops of Milan Cathedral, where he designed glass windows depicting scenes from the lives of the saints. He was a highly accomplished painter of natural history and still life in the tradition of Leonardo da Vinci, and left his native Milan in 1562, aged 36, to join the imperial Habsburg court in Vienna on the invitation of the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand I. Arcimboldo then served his successors the King of Bohemia Maximillian II and his son Rudolf II. 
Rudolf II moved permanently to Prague in 1582, taking Arcimboldo with him. For several years Prague became the cultural and intellectual hub of Europe, a centre for art and science, with Rudolf II attracting many painters and sculptors to his court, as well as alchemists and astrologers, and astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler. Whilst in Prague Arcimboldo developed a system for visual music, in which he linked colours with musical notes. 
Arcimboldo retired to Milan in 1587, but continued to be in the service of Rudolph II. The 1591 paintings Flora and Vertumnus were sent to Rudolph II in Prague. According to writer AndrĂ© Pieyre de Mandiargues in his bookArcimboldo the marvellous (1978, translated from the French, Arcimboldo le merveilleux), this painting of Flora is a facsimile of an original painting completed in 1588 which does not now exist. Flora is in a private collection in Paris. For more information about the artist, see also Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann’s book Arcimboldo: visual jokes, natural history, and still-life painting, published by University of Chicago Press, 2009. 
http://www.kaylaparker.co.uk/films/films/poppies_film.html

The following site posts "all" Arcimboldo's works, including photos of the stained glass pieces that were the focus of his early production.
http://www.allpaintings.org/v/Mannerism/Giuseppe+Arcimboldo/?g2_page=1

Washington Post review of Arcimboldo's 2010 show at The National Gallery
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/16/AR2010091606902.html

Archimboldo's Wikipedia entry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcimboldo




Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Self Portrait






No comments:

Post a Comment