Posted on 05/13/2020 11:38:55 AM PDT by mairdie
Born into an artistic Italian family, Giuseppe Arcimboldo's work was forgotten for centuries before being rediscovered. A craftsman in the Italian Renaissance tradition, Arcimboldo brought imagination and humor to his art with portraits made from fauna and flora. Several were cleverly made to be able to be turned upside down. Music is Espagnoletta, from the Spirit of Florence album.
The end videos are Cats to Segovia's Bach and Rory's World to Joseph Blanchard.
A fun PING to brighten your day
Fun indeed. Thanks Mairdie. :)
My pleasure, Artemis.
Ha! Some bizarre stuff there - wonder if drugs were involved!
Another artist I’d never heard of. Makes me wonder if I saw any of his portraits in Vienna, probably not likely.
I suppose a head covered in flowers is one solution for “COVID hair”...
I was familiar with some of his more famous works but didn’t know about the topsy-turvy compositions or the animals!
It’s always such a relief to just see something beautiful or fun instead of the usual doom drumbeat.
I doubt drugs. He was in charge of big celebrations and made grandiose designs for costumes and masks and props and set decorations. Da Vinci had drawn some faces that were real but had that hideous ugliness, so that might be one influence. And it was suggested in something I read that he might have been influenced by Bosch or Breugal, both of whom I despise because I was forced into one entire class on them by my adviser, who specialized in researching them. I think he’s the equivalent of the Daily Mail visual puzzles.
He apparently studied animals in the royal zoo. I love seeing the planning that must have gone into the compositions. His animals are perfect.
PING to Renaissance art
Very interesting, thx.
One can get lost in the wonderful details, he was a keen observer of nature. Imaginative work, a precursor to Surrealism?
Wikipedia:
Giuseppe Arcimboldo did not leave written certificates on himself or his artwork. After the deaths of Arcimboldo and his patron—the emperor Rudolph II—the heritage of the artist was quickly forgotten, and many of his works were lost. They were not mentioned in the literature of the 17th and 18th centuries. Only in 1885 did the art critic K. Kasati publish the monograph “Giuseppe Arcimboldi, Milan Artist” in which the main attention was given to Arcimboldi’s role as a portraitist.
With the advent of surrealism its theorists paid attention to the formal work of Arcimboldo, and in the first half of the 20th century many articles were devoted to his heritage. Gustav Hocke [de] drew parallels between Arcimboldo, Salvador Dalí, and Max Ernst’s works.
Thank you, mairdie. I had seen some of his paintings but knew nothing of the artist. Seen from afar, the portraits are grotesque but in examining each detail, one must admire his humorous imagination.
I agree that many are grotesque. But once you go in to the detail of the fauna and flora, you’re just amazed by the beauty of each detail and the balance of the composition. But I’d be unlikely to want to put a print on my wall. I’ll stick with the photo of Secretariat.
The women, by the way, might look so much alike because they’re siblings.
Ah, you know what I like!
The Strange and the Bizarre??
Arcimboldo the Marvelous! :^)
The one Archimboldo painting familiar to many was the one used as the cover of a Kansas album (Masque).
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