Giuseppe Arcimboldo: 3 Characteristics of Arcimboldo’s Art

Giuseppe Arcimboldo was an Italian painter who developed a unique style called “composite heads”—human portraits painted as collections of fruits, vegetables, tree roots, flowers, animals, and sea creatures. These imaginative portraits were an unconventional addition to Late Renaissance art—also known as Mannerism—throughout the sixteenth century. After the Thirty Years’ War the following century, many of Arcimboldo’s works were lost, including his more traditional paintings of religious subjects. However, Arcimboldo’s composite heads resurfaced in the twentieth century, influencing surrealist painters like Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo was born into a creative household in 1526; his father, Biagio Arcimboldo, was a painter in Milan. By his early twenties, Giuseppe was designing stained glass and frescoes inside cathedrals. At the age of 36, he became the court portraitist for the royal House of Habsburg. He worked first for the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I in Vienna, Austria, before serving Ferdinand’s son, Maximillian II, and finally his grandson, Rudolf II, in Prague.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo served the Habsburg family for over 25 years, writing poetry, designing costumes, and painting. He premiered his composite heads to Maximilian II on New Year’s Day in 1569 with two sets of paintings, The Four Seasons and The Four Elements. Arcimboldo continued experimenting with his unique portrait style until his death on July 11, 1593.

Arcimboldo experimented throughout his painting career, but three characteristics define the bulk of his work.

1. 1. Surreal portraiture: Centuries before the surrealism art movement took hold, Giuseppe Arcimboldo painted bizarre portraits composed of objects and creatures. While some of Arcimboldo’s paintings are playful and whimsical, others are unsettling and grotesque.
2. 2. Inspiration from nature: Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s composite heads were influenced by a Late Renaissance fascination with the curiosities of nature. Arcimboldo’s use of living plants and animals in his human portraits calls attention to our close relationship with the natural world.
3. 3. Riddles and visual puns: Arcimboldo filled his paintings with puzzles and jokes. In his portrait Summer (1563), the ear of the subject is represented by an ear of corn. The subject in Winter (1563) wears a cloak monogrammed with an M for Emperor Maximilian II. Arcimboldo incorporated small clues and gestures like this throughout many of his paintings.

Five of Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s most influential works helped define his career:

1. 1. The Four Seasons (1563): This set of paintings represents the four seasons through portraits. Each composite head is in profile and made of natural elements associated with each season. Spring features 80 different varieties of flowers and plants that form the shape of a woman. Summer depicts a woman made from assorted fruits and vegetables. Autumn shows a man with an apple for a cheek, a mushroom for an ear, and a pomegranate for a chin. Winter features an old man with skin of a knotted tree trunk and a beard of tangled branches.
2. 2. The Four Elements (1566): Similar to The Four Seasons, this set of paintings features four composite heads in profile made of objects and creatures associated with each element. The subject in Air is made from a collection of birds, with the shoulders represented by the plumage of a peacock. Fire is the only portrait in the set composed of inanimate objects; the subject’s neck is a burning candle, and his nose and ear are fire strikers—one of the Habsburgs’ imperial symbols. In Earth, land animals like deer, sheep, and elephants blend together to form a portrait; the lion skin on the subject’s shoulder is another symbol alluding to the Habsburg family. Finally, Water features 62 different species of aquatic animals, including a lobster, an octopus, and a tortoise.
3. 3. The Librarian (1566): This oil-on-canvas painting is another one of Arcimboldo’s composite heads. The subject is a caricature of a librarian shaped from a stack of books. The librarian’s beard is made from animal tail dusters. Some art historians believe the painting is based on Wolfgang Lazius, the historian of Emperor Ferdinand I. This composite head can be interpreted as both a celebration of scholarship and a satirical critique of academic culture.
4. 4. The Vegetable Gardener (1587–1590): An oil-on-panel painting, The Vegetable Gardener is one of Arcimboldo’s clever “reversibles,” or paintings that change when turned upside down. With one side turned upwards, this painting shows a still life of a bowl of vegetables. With the other side turned upwards, the painting becomes a grinning face—possibly Priapus, the Greek god of fertility and gardens. You can see The Vegetable Gardener at the Museo Civico Ala Ponzone in Cremona, Italy.
5. 5. Vertumnus (1591): This composite head is a portrait of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II as Vertumnus, the ancient Roman god of vegetation and the changing seasons. The portrait features a collection of fruits, flowers, and vegetables—namely luxurious fruits like cherries, plums, and olives to signify Rudolf II’s wealth. During his 29-year reign, Rudolf II was a prominent patron of the arts and a champion of Arcimboldo’s unique style.

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