Giuseppe Arcimboldo Four Seasons Collection Analysis

In this General Art History course work, we are going to talk about the Four Seasons Collection by Giuseppe Arcimboldo from the 1570s. As the work was going on we were debated with some questions that, as far as we are concerned, helped us to understand the art of this pioneer series of paintings. Some of the questions that we struggled were: Which are the main symbols that were chosen? And how did it influence other artistic styles?

A marvellous painter with a powerful mind and talented hands, got his work and intelligence greatly admired by his contemporaries in life. Arcimboldo was a strange case, of an artist who was not famous himself, but his paintings were famous. He spent 25 years working for the Habsburg court and became known there for his designs of costumes, art, events and entertainments, but especially for the composite heads. These paintings were a sort of entertainment for the public, to amuse the viewer. Soon forgotten after his death, Arcimboldo’s precious legacy was rediscovered around 1930 when included in a New York’s Museum of the Modern Art exhibition called Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism. Being his work so detailed and surreal, Giuseppe’s name will continue to echo around the world, living in his art pieces, dearly conserved among us.

Introduction

Our work is divided into 3 main parts where we will explain first the period where Arcimboldo lived and created, then we move forward to his life and works. In the 3rd part, We are opening the structure of the well known series of his Four Seasons paintings. First we will see the pictures as a series, then we go deeper and check the 1 by 1.

Who he used this radically new way of 1. About the