It isn’t always simple to tell one artist’s works from another’s: sometimes the same artistic style may lead the observer to some confusion.
Well, in the case of Giuseppe Arcimboldo that’s, let’s say… rare.
In fact, his portraits made up of fruits, vegetables and everyday objects are probably among the most recognizable pieces of art that have ever been created.
The reason why Arcimboldo painted such peculiar portraits is not sure, but he undoubtedly had an interesting and unique view of the world. This brought him to reinterpret actual human faces in a non-traditional way, always starting from a concept of what he wanted to represent and then working on the grotesque and symbolic part of the painting.
Probably because of his unusual style, Arcimboldo wasn’t immediately successful among his contemporaries: he started as a fresco and stained glass designer in local cathedrals, until he was hired as a portraitist at the Habsburg court in Vienna.
His portraits were often allegorical and critical of his contemporaries; for example, The Librarian, one of the works in which he didn’t paint food, Arcimboldo criticizes those wealthy people who only bought books to own them, rather than to read them.
Also, he sometimes chose to play with optical effects even more that just with the portraits: for example, Reversible head with basket of fruit can be seen both as a simple still nature of a bunch of masterfully painted fruit or, when upside-down, as a head with a basket as a hat.
Arcimboldo’s works are displayed pretty much anywhere in the world.
If you visit the Louvre you’ll find Autumn and Winter, two of his famous four seasons; Vertumnus, along with The Librarian, is on display in Sweden, while Spring is in Madrid, at the Museo de la Real Academia de San Fernando, and Summer in Wien’s Kunsthistorisches Museum. Another of his most famous paintings, Four Seasons in One Head, is in Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art.