 Initially,
like his father, the Renaissance painter Arcimboldo worked as a painter on
Milan Cathedral. This changed in 1562 when the Emporer of Hapsburg,
Ferdinand 1, summoned him to the royal court in Prague. Ferdinand’s
successors, Maxmiliaan II and Rudolph II, were also much taken with
Arcimboldo’s marvelous talents and so, for nearly all of the rest of his
life, he remained in the service of this court, not only as a painter, but
also as an architect, a designer of bizarre settings and costumes, and an
organizer of major festivities. His work was much appreciated both for its
sense of craftsmanship as well as its artistic value, and its eccentric,
if sometimes comical aspects, may have made a welcome change to the
day-to-day harsh political reality. Arcimboldo owes his present-day fame
to his artistic discovery of the composite head. He painted his first
version of The Four Seasons – portraits composed of flowers, fruit, twigs
and leaves –soon after his arrival in Prague. |
