1527 -1593 · Milan, Vienna and Prague

Fruits, flowers, animals, books and objects become faces in the learned and playful inventions of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Habsburg painter.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo was born in Milan in 1527 into a family of artists. His first documented activities concerned stained glass boxes in Milan Cathedral, then sets and tapestries in Monza and Como. This collective work taught him to construct an image in colored fragments and to think simultaneously about detail and silhouette. In 1562, he was called to the imperial court of Vienna by Ferdinand I. He then served Maximilian II then Rudolf II, in Vienna and Prague, as portraitist, designer of parties, costumes, tournaments, sets and curiosities. It was in this environment where art, natural sciences, collection and emblematic met that he developed his famous faces composed. In the Seasons, flowers, fruits, ears, branches and roots come together to form human profiles. In the Elements, fish, birds, mammals or objects in turn become parts of a face. Every detail is observed precisely, but the whole functions as a portrait, allegory and political celebration of the imperial order. Summer accumulates ripe harvests; Winter builds an old age of stump and bark; Spring brings to fruition an almost entirely floral face. Arcimboldo also invents reversible images, in which a basket or dish becomes a head when the painting is turned over. Authorized to return to Milan in 1587, he remains linked to Rudolph II and addressed to him Vertumnus, portrait of the emperor in the form of the god of seasons and metamorphoses. Died in 1593, Arcimboldo fell into relative oblivion for a long time before being rediscovered in the 20th century, notably by the surrealists. His art remains unique because it unites illusion, knowledge of life, humor and thought of transformation. The "Giuseppe Arcimboldo" selection notably compares Summer and Winter. His reading favors movement.

Arcimboldo does not simply juxtapose fruits: he regulates every detail so that all of nature metamorphoses, from a distance, into human identity.