A r c i m b o l d o

The University of chicago Press chicago & london

A r c i m b o l d oVisual Jokes, Natural History, and Still-Life Painting

Thomas DaCosTa Kaufmann

Thomas dacosta Kaufmann is the Frederick marquand Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. His many books include Toward a Geography of Art, also published by the University of chicago Press.

The University of chicago Press gratefully acknowledges a subvention from the Publications Fund of the department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University.

The University of chicago Press, chicago 60637The University of chicago Press, ltd., london© 2009 by The University of chicagoAll rights reserved. Published 2009Printed in the United States of America

18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 1 2 3 4 5

isbn-13: 978-0-226-42686-0 (cloth)isbn-10: 0-226- 42686-6 (cloth)

library of congress cataloging-in-Publication data

Kaufmann, Thomas decosta. Arcimboldo : visual jokes, natural history, and still-life painting / Thomas dacosta Kaufmann. p. cm. includes bibliographical references and index. isbn-13: 978-0-226-42686-0 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn-10: 0-226-42686-6 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Arcimboldi, Giuseppe, 1527–1593. i. Title Nd623.A7K38 2009 759.5—dc22 200902600

∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed library materials, ANSi Z39.48-1992.

Iulio dilectissimo filio

contents

Table of Illustrations ix

Preface and Acknowledgments xiii

1 introduction

17 1 Arcimboldo’s lombard origins

43 2 Arcimboldo from 1562: The creation of composite Heads

71 3 learning, Poetry, and Art

91 4 Serious Jokes

115 5 Natural Philosophy, Natural History, and Nature Painting

149 6 Nature Studies

167 7 Arcimboldo and the origins of Still life

191 8 Arcimboldo’s Paradoxical Paintings and the origins of Still life

213 conclusion: Arcimboldo in the History of Art

219 Appendix 1. Arcimboldo, the Facchini, and Popular culture

223 Appendix 2. Arcimboldo and meda at monza

226 Appendix 3. concordance of Arcimboldo images from the Aldrovandi letter, bologna, biblioteca Universitaria, dresden Kupferstich-Kabinett cA 213, Vienna (cod. min. 42) and the “museum” of rudolf ii (Österreichische Nationalbib-liothek, cod. min. 129 and 130)

Notes 233 Bibliography 291 Index 307

ix

illustrations

Figure 0.1 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Summer, 1563 2

Figure 0.2 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Flora, 1589 3

Figure 0.3 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Vertumnus (Emperor Rudolf II), 1590 4

Figure 0.4 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, The Vegetable Gardener(?) (invertible), c. 1590 or earlier 5

Figure 0.5 Arcimboldo restaurant, Asterix Theme Park, France 7

Figure 1.1 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Fire, 1566 18

Figure 1.2 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Self-portrait as a Man of Papers, 1587 19

Figure 1.3a Giuseppe Arcimboldo, stained glass window, detail, from The Story of Saint Catherine, 1551(–56?) 20

Figure 1.3b Giuseppe Arcimboldo, stained glass window, detail, The Daughters of Lot, 1551(–56?) 20

Figure 1.4 Giuseppe (and biagio?) Arcimboldo, Naming of Saint John the Baptist, c. 1545 21

Figure 1.5 Giuseppe Arcimboldo and Juseppe meda, Tree of Jesse, 1556–59 23

Figure 1.6 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Preaching of John the Baptist, 1550(–59?) 24

Figure 1.7 Johann Karcher after Arcimboldo, Transit of the Virgin, 1561–62 25

Figure 1.8 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Winter, 1563 28

Figure 1.9 Francesco melzi, Rhea Sylvia, c. 1525 32

Figure 1.10 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, lizard, chameleon, and salamander, 1553 35

Figure 2.1 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Self-portrait, c. 1570? 47

Figure 2.2 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Self-portrait, 1575? 47

Figure 2.3 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Rudolf II at his Coronation as Roman King, 1575 48

x I l l u s t r a t I o n s

Figure 2.4 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Autumn, 1573 51

Figure 2.5 copy after Arcimboldo, Air, c. 1566 or c. 1580? 52

Figure 2.6 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Spring, 1563 53

Figure 2.7 cloak of maximilian ii 55

Figure 2.8 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Spring, 1573 57

Figure 2.9 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Summer, 1573 58

Figure 2.10 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Winter, 1573 59

Figure 2.11 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, The Cook (invertible), 1570 62

Figure 2.12 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, The Librarian, c. 1566? 63

Figure 2.13 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, design for costume, 1585 or before 64

Figure 2.14 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, design for costume, 1585 or before 65

Figure 3.1 Jacopo Strada, elephant with trapping, 1571 79

Figure 3.2 Giovanni baptista Fonteo, tournament drawing (detail), c. 1570 82

Figure 3.3 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, drawing of sericulture, c. 1587 87

Figure 4.1 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Water, 1566 95

Figure 4.2 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, The Jurist, 1566 98

Figure 4.3 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Earth, 1566 99

Figure 5.1 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Companion of Astronomy, 1571 117

Figure 5.2 Lilium persicum from carolus clusius, Rarorum aliquot stirpium per Pannoniam, Austriam. etc. historia, Antwerp, 1583 123

Figure 5.3 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, blackbuck antelope and hartebeest, c. 1584 124

Figure 5.4 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, moose, c. 1566? 126

Figure 5.5 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, goat’s hooves, Vienna, c. 1563? 127

Figure 5.6 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, blue-headed quail dove (“colombo d’india”), 1577 128

Figure 5.7 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, aplomado falcon, 1575 129

Figure 5.8 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, helmeted curassow (stone hocco), 1571 129

Figure 5.9 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, quail with extra leg, 1571 130

Figure 5.10 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, dead bee eater 131

Figure 5.11 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, goose with extra leg, 1577 131

Figure 5.12 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, moose, 1566 132

Figure 5.13 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, duiker, 1569 133

Figure 5.14 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, coati, 1577 134

Figure 5.15 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, stag, 1564 134

Figure 5.16 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, black-headed sheep, 1577 136

Figure 5.17 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, angora cat, 1578 136

Figure 5.18 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, chamois 137

Figure 5.19 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, lynx 137

Figure 5.20 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, stag with violets 139

Figure 5.21 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, narcissus 140

xiI l l u s t r a t I o n s

Figure 5.22 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, iris 141

Figure 5.23 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, tulip 143

Figure 5.24 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, asphodel and gladiolus 143

Figure 5.25 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Saint-John’s-wort 144

Figure 5.26 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, reindeer, 1562 145

Figure 5.27 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, jerboa, 1578 145

Figure 6.1 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, wildflowers 151

Figure 6.2 Jacopo ligozzi, fish studies, c. 1578 152

Figure 6.3 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, antlers 159

Figure 7.1 Giovanni da Udine, Still Life and Animals, 1518–19 172

Figure 7.2 Engraving after Giovanni da Udine, still-life detail in logge, Vatican Palace 173

Figure 7.3 Joris Hoefnagel, page from Terra with copy after dürer’s Hare, c. 1575 175

Figure 7.4 ludger Tom ring, Still Life, 1562 176

Figure 7.5 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Invertible Head as Basket of Fruit, c. 1590 178

Figure 7.6 Antonio da crevalcore(?), Fragment with still life of grapes, c. 1520 179

Figure 7.7 dirck de Quade van ravesteyn, Leopard and Cheetah, 1600–1610 [or c. 1605] 183

Figure 7.8 bartholomeus Spranger, Bacchus and Venus, c. 1591 183

Figure 7.9 Joris Hoefnagel, from Mira Calligraphia Monumenta, c. 1596 184

Figure 7.10 Joris Hoefnagel, Vase with Flowers, 1594 186

Figure 7.11 Joris Hoefnagel, Venus and Cupid, 1590 187

Figure 7.12 roeland Savery, Flower Still Life, 1603 188

Figure 8.1 After Hoefnagel(?), Hairy Family, c. 1590 195

Figure 8.2 N. Pfaff and A. Schweinberger(?), carved rhinoceros horn, 1611 197

Figure 8.3 Giuseppe Arcimboldo, albino crow, 1574 197

Figure 8.4 Hans von Aachen, Boy with Grapes, c. 1605–7 202

xi i i

preface & acknowledgments

This book pays off a debt. Although it might seem that i have spent much of my scholarly career on Arcimboldo, to date i have not yet written a volume devoted sole-ly to him. While i have studied many different subjects other than Arcimboldo, for more than three decades i have been involved on and off with this intriguing artist. That is because i have continued to find out things about him over the years, and other discoveries have remained to be interpreted. Some of my previous results have been published in articles and in catalogue essays, which are reflected here.

This book is, however, not a conventional monograph; that has in a way already been provided by the recent exhibition held in 2007 and 2008 in Paris and Vienna, and its collaborative catalogue. (in addition to ten entries, i contributed “Arcimboldo’s composite Heads: origins and invention” and “Giuseppe Arcimboldo: learning, let-ters and Art,” to Arcimboldo 1526–1593, ed. S. Ferino-Pagden, milan, Paris, and Vienna, 2007, pp. 97–101 and 273–81; the former appears revised as the excursus to chapter 1, while the latter is based on materials in chapters 3 and 4.) Although i have provided a full if relatively brief biographical account of Arcimboldo, the present book concen-trates more on certain aspects of the milieus in which he worked, and in particular on some but not all of his most famous and influential works: his composite heads. The most important new additions to the artist’s oeuvre, his nature studies, also loom large here. These circumstances have led to a different line of interpretation, to con-siderations of humanism, poetry, natural history, still life, and paradox. other issues, including Arcimboldo, the comic, and satire, remain to be elaborated.

This book therefore takes an approach different from that found in some of my earlier publications on Arcimboldo, which it complements. However, my disserta-tion, Variations on the Imperial Theme in the Age of Maximilian II and Rudolf II, New York and london, 1978, and several subsequent articles considered the allegorical

xiv P r e f a c e a n d a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

aspects of some of Arcimboldo’s paintings and their relation to his tournament de-signs and collecting. it has sometimes been misunderstood that the emphases of these publications excluded other interpretations: they do not, but add to the more comprehensive approach now represented here.

one basic idea of the present book was already adumbrated almost two decades ago in “Arcimboldo’s Serious Jokes: ‘mysterious but long meaning,’” in The Verbal and the Visual: Essays in Honor of William Heckscher, New York, 1990, pp. 57–86. more recently i have also addressed aspects of the more fantastic side of Arcimboldo in “caprices of Art and Nature: Arcimboldo and the monstrous,” in Kunstform Capric-cio: Von der Groteske zur Spieltheorie der Moderne, ed. Ekkehard mai and Joachim rees, cologne, 1997, pp. 33–51; its ideas are incorporated into a section of chapter 8. Since 2001, beginning with a lecture published in essay form six years later (“The Artificial and the Natural: Arcimboldo and the origins of Still life,” in The Artificial and the Natural. An Evolving Polarity, ed. bernadette bensaude-Vincent and William New-man, cambridge, massachusetts, and london, 2007, pp. 149–84), in which a pre-liminary version of some of the ideas in chapter 8 are also presented, i have returned more intensively to the study of Arcimboldo—especially to the naturalistic side of his art. This book is the result of that work.

Since 2001 i have presented ideas related to the topics of this book, especially chapter 8, in numerous lectures. Venues have included, more or less in chronologi-cal order, the massachusetts institute of Technology; the New England renaissance Society meeting held at the University of massachusetts, Amherst, massachusetts; the royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm; the bibliotheca Hertziana and brit-ish School in rome; the Fondazione roberto longhi, Florence; the American Academy in rome; the institute of Art History, Prague; radboud University, Nijmegen, Neth-erlands; Power institute, University of Sydney, Australia; the institute of Fine Arts, New York University; the University of Southern california; Florida State University; the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, munich; a symposium (“Scherz und ironie in Kunst und literatur zur Zeit Arcimboldos”) held in conjunction with the Arcimboldo exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches museum, Vienna; and last but certainly not least, several renaissance colloquia at Princeton University. i am grateful to members of the audiences at these occasions for their attentiveness, questions, and comments.

i am also grateful to all those institutions, including archives and libraries, as well as individuals too numerous to enumerate after all these years, who have facilitated my research and offered me suggestions. in particular i would nevertheless like to single out some people who in more recent times have been particularly helpful in contrib-uting one way or another to the completion of research on this project, or who have made useful suggestions for the ideas contained in it: brian coopenhaver, Walter cup-peri, Sibylle Ebert-Schifferer, Joel Goldfrank, Anthony Grafton, Annemarie Jordan Gschwendt, marilyn lavin, Silvio leydi, William Newman, laura mattioli rossi, Al-mudena Pérez de Tudela, and especially Elizabeth Pilliod. my loyal research assistants omer Zihel and Vera Keller helped in many ways, particularly in the identification of naturalia. i am grateful to Susan bielstein, Anthony burton, and renaldo migaldi for the preparation of this book.

xvP r e f a c e a n d a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

my research has been aided over the years by the Spears Fund of the department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University. Publication has been assisted by subven-tions from the Publication Funds of the department. A National Endowment for the Humanities rome Prize Fellowship enabled me to spend a memorable academic year, 2003–04, at the American Academy in rome, whence i could carry out sustained re-search in Europe. To all i am grateful.

Princeton, march 2009

IntroductIon

1

A cucumber forms a bulbous nose; the open maul of a wolf simulates an eye; a striking iron is an ear; a shark is a mouth; a pile of books composes a torso. These are some of the startling details in the com-posite paintings by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526–1593) that are made up of disparate but related elements. The figures in Arcimboldo’s Four Seasons are, for instance, composed of fruits and vegetables that

grow in each of those seasons. Vegetables and fruits constitute the head and hair of Summer (Figure 0.1), while ears of grain form its torso and a straw fillet crowns its top. His series the Four Elements, based on the elements of traditional cosmology, likewise employ birds, animals, and aquatic creatures to constitute Air, Earth, and Water respectively while Fire flares forth with features fashioned from flames and objects that produce fire or were forged in it. Figures of a cook and a wine steward are similarly made of objects pertaining to their activities: pots, pans, and a wine barrel. Paintings of a man made of books, and a head of meat with books attached, may represent a librarian and a jurist.1 Flora (Figure 0.2) is made of flowers, Vertum-nus (Figure 0.3) is composed of fruits and flowers from all seasons, and one recently discovered painting shows signs of all four seasons within a single head.2

Several paintings by Arcimboldo work not only as composite heads, like mosaics formed from different objects,3 but also as coherent images when they are turned upside down. Viewed one way, these pictures resemble other composite heads made of fruits, meat, or vegetables (Figure 0.4). Turned upside down, they can be appre-hended as a basket of fruit, a platter of meat, or a bowl of root vegetables and nuts.

Though Arcimboldo’s composites are relatively few in number—only some twenty by the artist himself have survived—they have recently gained him celebrity status. A large color illustration of Summer has adorned page one of the New York Times arts

figure 0.1 giuseppe arcimboldo, Summer, 1563. kunsthistorisches museum, Vienna. Photo: eric lessing / art resource, nY.

figure 0.2 giuseppe arcimboldo, Flora, 1589. Private collection.

figure 0.3 giuseppe arcimboldo, Vertumnus (Emperor Rudolf II), 1590. skokloster castle, sweden.

Photo: eric lessing / art resource, nY.

figure 0.4 giuseppe arcimboldo, The Vegetable Gardener(?), c. 1590 or earlier. Invertible. museo civico a la Ponzone, cremona.

Photo: eric lessing / art resource, nY.

I n t r o d u c t I o n6

section, and a small color reproduction of Vertumnus has been on the newspaper’s front page.4 crowds clamored to see the first monographic exhibition devoted to this artist who lived from 1526 to 1593; it received outstanding reviews.5 Pamphlets, chil-dren’s books, and bric à brac of all kinds related to Arcimboldo do a brisk business at exhibition shops and on the Web.

The recent interest in Arcimboldo results, no doubt, primarily from responses to pictures like those published in the Times. His images, particularly those of the former non-invertible sort, have become almost ubiquitous in contemporary visual culture. His paintings of composites are illustrated, copied, and knocked off in photographs, sculptures, films, and advertisements.6 They inspire brands of food: Arcimboldo’s painting Summer now serves as a logo for a brand of tomatoes sold in italy that bears his name (“Arcimboldo Pachino”). restaurants in New York, oslo, Prague, barce-lona, milan, Turin, Venice, and buenos Aires are named after him. The soup genie boldo in the animated film The Tale of Despereaux (2008), an Arcimboldesque head of fruits and vegetables, pays tribute to the artist’s inventions. most striking of all is a large three-dimensional composite head that forms the entrance to a restaurant at the theme park which is named after the comic book character Asterix, located thirty kilometers north of Paris (Figure 0.5).7

This is also not the first time in recent memory that Arcimboldo’s pictures have sparked broader interest; the history of the artist’s reception is revealing. Arcim-boldo’s imagery had already entered the world of capitalism by the 1930s when his painting Vertumnus (then identified as “The Gardener”), with its prominent grapes and fruits, served as an emblem for the bertuzzi juice company.8 The commercializa-tion of Arcimboldo’s imagery followed closely upon his “rediscovery” earlier in the twentieth century when, after years of neglect by artists and art historians, he came to be regarded as the grandfather of surrealism and fantastic art. The museum of modern Art in New York exhibited him accordingly. in any case, even though the role of Arcimboldo’s composite heads as the inspiration for artists like dali and other modernist masters of the double image may subsequently have been challenged, the surrealists and Picasso certainly knew his work.

A 1987 exhibition in Venice carried this line of interpretation even further. in presenting most of Arcimboldo’s paintings and drawings along with copies after them and works inspired by his inventions, it placed Arcimboldo in the history of artistic exploration of the “hidden” image, emphasizing his relation to many aspects of twentieth-century art.9 Although this approach received a good deal of criticism, Arcimboldo’s impact on art of the twentieth century seems undeniable. Several con-temporary artists have explicitly acknowledged his influence on their work.10 His paintings have, needless to say, also continued to be shown in many more exhibi-tions.11

The reception of Arcimboldo resonates with certain aspects of contemporary cul-ture. The popular revival of his art seems almost emblematic of an age in which im-ages are universally commercialized, rapidly disseminated, and even disaggregated; their digital reproductions can be morphed and recombined by cutting and pasting. Arcimboldo’s personifications may even seem to epitomize a line of contemporary

I n t r o d u c t I o n 7

cultural criticism that has described how images are disjoined from their natural ori-gins and become their virtual or visual simulacra.

Yet while Arcimboldo images have gained contemporary celebrity, their place in the history of European art—and, more broadly, the history of the culture of the artist’s own time—remains unsettled. before the past two decades, if most histori-ans of renaissance art paid any attention at all to Arcimboldo, he was regarded as a minor if amusing curiosity.12 Growing attention has only slowly led to his paintings finding a place on the walls of major museums where the art of the renaissance is displayed; this change in fortune did not really begin to occur until the 1980s.13 And even though the 1987 exhibition brought the artist to the notice of a broader public, one critic could still respond by dismissing Arcimboldo as little more than a “competent journeyman” whose fame was due to the single activity of popularizing composite images.14

While Arcimboldo’s composites may now have gained him notoriety, his fame may have come at the cost of the disconnection of his oeuvre from its own time. much of the twentieth- and twenty-first-century reception of Arcimboldo has related him to modernist painting, especially in tendencies toward fantasy and surrealism. Ef-forts to understand the original context in which his composite heads were painted, and the audience that would first have received and appreciated them, have thus been overshadowed. What Arcimboldo’s pictures might have meant to his contem-

figure 0.5 arcimboldo

restaurant, asterix theme

Park, france. Photo:

Joshua weiner.

I n t r o d u c t I o n8

poraries, and what the impact of those pictures might have been in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries beyond being copied or directly imitated, remains at issue.

A large recent exhibition of Arcimboldo attempted to redress some of these prob-lems by concentrating on the artist as a historical figure. Eschewing the treatment of his paintings as forerunners of some currents in modern art, it focused instead on the artist’s historical position and emphasized multiple facets of his oeuvre. Fol-lowing some other tendencies in scholarship, it sought to portray Arcimboldo much more as an organizer of pageants and an observer of nature, for whom painting com-posite heads was just one of many tasks.

Yet the exhibition catalogue also reveals that considerable differences of opin-ion continue to exist concerning the painter and his work. rival and contradictory views of the artist confront each other in the catalogue essays. interpretations of the composite heads thus remain to be disentangled, rectified, and reconciled. While some sources of Arcimboldo’s paintings have been adduced and focus has been redi-rected to them, the paintings themselves have not been fully elucidated. A more com-plete understanding of the origins, character, and impact of Arcimboldo’s composite paintings in relation to the artist’s life, oeuvre, and situation in the history of art and culture is still needed. That is the primary goal of this book.

What then may be said about the historical figure of Arcimboldo, and what are some major lines of interpretation of his work? looked at more closely in the light of his biography, even as it has been reconstructed recently, his current celebrity may appear quite surprising. Arcimboldo was born in milan in 1526; his early career hardly seems to foretell his subsequent fame, nor does it offer many overt clues to the origin of the inventions on which his reputation is based. No easel paintings seem to survive from his early years, and nothing he made during his first days in lombardy really prepares us for the invention of his composite heads in any case. Arcimboldo’s early activities might consequently appear to give some license for calling him a com-petent journeyman. like many other italian artists of his time, he at first carried out multiple tasks in a variety of places in order to earn his bread. He designed stained-glass windows, tapestries, and frescoes in milan, monza, and como.

Things changed, however, when Arcimboldo went to the Habsburg court in central Europe in 1562. For more than a quarter century Arcimboldo served the Habsburgs as imperial painter, during the reigns of Ferdinand i (ruled as emperor 1558–64), maximilian ii (ruled 1564–76), and finally rudolf ii (ruled 1576–1612). At the imperial court he was renowned for much more than his composite heads; he painted and drew portraits, designed festivals, helped make acquisitions for the imperial collections, and also did drawings for silk manufacture. Nevertheless, many of his activities for the court may still be related to his striking inventions of com-posites.15

despite some scholarly disagreement, it can also now definitely be determined that Arcimboldo painted his first composite heads at the imperial court, not in italy. This determination contradicts some recent attempts to situate the original execu-tion of these intriguing pictures in italy and to connect them with popular culture there. Arcimboldo painted his first composite heads while in the service of maximil-

I n t r o d u c t I o n 9

ian ii—indeed, even before maximilian was raised to the imperial throne, although he gave the heads to maximilian along with a second set of related paintings a few years after he had completed both sets. Arcimboldo also made other pictures of this type for this emperor, and then later for his successors and for other princes. He was ennobled by Emperor rudolf ii for his many services and accomplishments,16 and also received the exceedingly rare honor of being raised to the status of count palatine. These honors hardly mark him as someone who was appreciated merely as a competent journeyman.

Arcimboldo then returned home to milan, probably during the year 1587. From there he continued to work for rudolf ii, sending his pictures Vertumnus and Flora, among other objects, back to Prague where the imperial residence had been estab-lished. His lombard contemporaries lionized him in poems, biographies, and artis-tic treatises. renowned at the end of his life in his city of birth, he died in milan in 1593.

Early signs exist for the reception of Arcimboldo’s inventions: other artists began imitating his pictures during his lifetime. in 1592 Paolo morigia (morigi), a contem-porary biographer, attributes the invention of composite images to Arcimboldo and also says they are found in many prints of the time.17 G.P. comanini, another im-portant contemporary commentator and associate, says that Arcimboldo’s painted inventions were being stolen (semplici ruberie di sue cose, in comanini’s words) by many workshops.18 in fact Arcimboldo’s paintings have often been crudely replicated; comanini speaks of contemporaneous examples as assai rudamente composte.19 They may have inspired other contemporaneous artists to make similar works—if indeed pictures that seem similar to his were not, as has been said, simply thefts of his ideas. For example, the painter and writer Giovanni Paolo lomazzo, another milanese contemporary of Arcimboldo, mentions in his Trattato of 1584 that carlo Urbino da crema had painted a picture of cookery (cucina) made out of kitchen utensils, which must have resembled Arcimboldo’s compositions.20

composite heads resembling Arcimboldo’s were also made soon after his death by other accomplished artists. Some such works have been attributed to his near con-temporary Francesco Zucchi, brother of the better known Florentine painter Jacopo Zucchi.21 Anthropomorphic landscapes, composite heads, and various sorts of crea-tures also appear in paintings, prints, and drawings from the seventeenth century, in works attributed to Joost de momper and to other artists.22 later copies and imita-tions are known to have been made in paint and ink down through the nineteenth century.23

The proliferation of Arcimboldesque images, as distinct from Arcimboldo’s own work, may have been one of the factors contributing to the historical eclipse of the artist himself. At any rate, it remained until the mid-twentieth century for art histo-rians to notice him favorably. but the recovery of Arcimboldo also picked up many of the themes found in earlier literature on the artist, which have consequently contin-ued to color much writing on him.

Arcimboldo’s composite paintings have most often been regarded as humorous or playful jokes. Even some of his contemporaries called his heads “ridiculous.” co-

I n t r o d u c t I o n10

manini called one of them a joke. in the eighteenth century luigi lanzi, historian of italian painting, said Arcimboldo made jokes with his brush. And with the revival of interest in Arcimboldo in the twentieth century, this view returned. Some of the first art-historical studies of the 1950s also called his pictures jokes; and one of them found his work “parodistic.” it was thus under the banner of visual jokester that Arcimboldo entered the mainstream of renaissance art history: in the 1970s the authoritative Pelican History of Art series called his pictures scherzi—jokes.24

An emphasis on the fantastic, capricious, whimsical, and bizarre in Arcimboldo has long accompanied the view that his pictures are simply jokes. This view also goes back to Arcimboldo’s own time, when several writers who knew his work well—including lomazzo, comanini, and morigia—called his creations capricci and biz-zarrie. comanini specifically described Arcimboldo as a “most ingenious fantastic painter,” invoking him in his discussion of fantastic imitation. Eighteenth-century critics like lanzi and P.A. orlandi also called Arcimboldo’s paintings bizzarrie. in a similar spirit, one of the first monographs to be published on the artist called his works capricious, whimsical paintings (dipinti ghiribizzosi).25

Twenty-first-century viewers may still find Arcimboldo’s pictures amusing and fantastic in ways similar to those expressed in the past. For example, one review of the recent exhibition devoted to the artist ends on the note that his painting Ver-tumnus contains a hint of mockery (it is a portrait of rudolf ii in the guise of that ancient god of the seasons).26 However, the meaning of humor, jokes, and various definitions of the fantastic or capricious may also now be understood differently, as well as more historically, than they often have been in the past.

To begin with, the presence of the playful, the capricious, or the humorous does not exclude the possibility that there may be more to Arcimboldo’s composite paint-ings.27 Their very method of composition makes this clear. The separate objects in the paintings are rendered in careful detail so that they may be recognized individu-ally.28 but it is impossible to focus on the separate parts and on the whole at the same time, because concentration on the individual components impedes recognition of the head and torso as a whole. The two impressions cannot be grasped simultane-ously.29 one either pays attention to the individual fruits and vegetables or notices that they compose a head; the viewer shifts from one impression to the other. reso-lution of the impressions is uncertain; oscillation between two perspectives results.30 Arcimboldo’s composites thus present a visual paradox similar to the rabbit/duck image discussed in the literature of psychology and by the philosopher ludwig Witt-genstein: the rabbit/duck, while not closely resembling either creature itself, can be read either as a rabbit or as a duck but not as both simultaneously.31

Arcimboldo’s pictures can also be compared to some other types of images which create acute illusions, including anamorphic pictures32 and certain forms of trompe l’oeil paintings, which are comparable to Arcimboldo’s efforts in their careful replica-tion of natural details but employ a further trick of pictorial illusion. As exemplified by the depiction of a letter rack on the verso of Vittore carpaccio’s two-sided panel Hunting in the Lagoon (los Angeles, J. Paul Getty museum), the term trompe l’oeil is used to denote “paintings that represent things in an especially deceptive way, so

I n t r o d u c t I o n 11

that the representation of a thing seems to be the thing itself.”33 Some such images represent flies landing on the surfaces of paintings or frames: these also share an af-finity with a detail in a painting by Arcimboldo which depicts a fly having alighted on a flower (which is at the same time part of a breast).34 like Arcimboldo’s paintings, and also like anamorphoses, trompe l’oeil demonstrates that the spectator plays a role in construing an image,35 although its ambiguity and that of anamophoses are of a different kind from what one meets in Arcimboldo.

Arcimboldo’s paintings involve the play of the mind not just in games of percep-tion, but also with concepts. His pictures work at first or second glance from their play with illusion yet they also employ wit to express their subjects, as is demonstrat-ed by his paintings of the four elements, described above, and of the four seasons, which depict the fruits appropriate to each season.

While notions of the ambiguous, the joking, the capricious, and the paradoxical thus pertain to Arcimboldo’s paintings, one of the many paradoxes the pictures re-veal is that something can be playful and serious at the same time. Sigmund Freud, whose ideas had an impact on the earlier twentieth-century reception of Arcimbol-do, suggested how this combination could work. Freud characterized the techniques of a joke as condensation, displacement, and indirect representation. All might be said to occur, for example, in the composition of Summer, where a currant is an eye, a peach is a cheek, and a pear is a chin. Freud also said that jokes involve a social process related to play, and that this differentiates them from the comic. This social dimension of jokes was also emphasized by Jacques lacan. Similarly the anthropolo-gist mary douglas demonstrated that the social dimension enters at all levels into the perception of a joke, and that the congruence of the “joke structure with the social structure” is one of its sources of pleasure.36 Ted cohen’s recent philosophical disquisition on jokes has also revealed their social aspect.37

Some whose recent approaches to the problem of meaning have been informed by semiotics would also agree that meaning can be approached by treating it in rela-tion to the audience or community of interpreters. To be sure, Arcimboldo’s audi-ences have varied through the centuries, and consequently so have the ways in which his pictures have been interpreted. Nevertheless, interpretations may be aided by an effort to determine the possibilities of understanding that were established by the expectations of the social and intellectual world in which his works originated.

one important way in which the initial series of seasons and elements were im-mediately regarded was as imperial allegories. Poems presented with the paintings by Arcimboldo and his associates demonstrate that the paintings were read as such, and the paintings’ manifest symbolism also supports a reading of them as having pertained to the prince.38 Yet this argument, which i first presented more than thirty years ago, has occasionally been greeted with some skepticism by those who still want to interpret Arcimboldo’s paintings as predominantly humorous or comic, and who lump them either with the grotesque or with popular imagery, not recognizing the importance of the serious joke.

The concept of the serious joke to be developed here was, however, quite familiar in Arcimboldo’s time—for example, in the writings of Erasmus. Erasmianism has

I n t r o d u c t I o n12

a special resonance for Arcimboldo’s immediate milieu, and for his patrons at the imperial court. in this spirit, the humor found in Arcimboldo’s paintings does not exclude the possibility that they may convey more serious meanings.

This interpretation also does not exclude other possible readings of the pictures, such as that proposed by roland barthes shortly after this author first presented his interpretation of the paintings as imperial allegories.39 barthes saw Arcimboldo as a worker of languages who changed and permutated various rhetorical forms. Paradox can of course also be regarded as a rhetorical figure, and certainly it has been recog-nized as one of the paintings’ characteristic aspects, as is acknowledged in the many poems on those paintings which are to be discussed in this book.

barthes’s arguments have recently been expanded into a far-reaching critique. While the idea that Arcimboldo’s pictures are grotesques—or grotesque, as they have also been called—has been rejected, the pictures nonetheless are seen to have a relationship to this form, which is regarded as being characterized by discordant elements, since they present visual paradoxes and rhetorical paradoxes. The impor-tance of the allegorical element is however downplayed, and the primary importance of applying Erasmian (and Socratic) ideas of the serious joke to Arcimboldo rejected. in a parallel to those critics who downplay the thesis that Arcimboldo’s paintings are imperial allegories and who argue instead that they challenge the social order, Arcimboldo’s paradoxes are instead seen as gratuitous displays of virtuosity reveal-ing a culture in crisis. consequently their deployment of paradox is said to shake the epistemic foundations of renaissance thinking about similitude, which had been the ground of allegory.40

but this interpretation appears to be yet another restatement of an anachronistic modernist view of the artist, informed by belief in the possibility of the mise en abime, the eternal recurrence of circularity, which it invokes. This approach seems howev-er to be more inspired by Parisian thought of the late twentieth century (including Foucault’s ideas of episteme), than by recognition of what was possible or likely in Arcimboldo’s own lifetime and milieu.41 Notably, this argument does not take into account several important recent discoveries, much new research on Arcimboldo, and the resulting shift in emphases which are proposed in the present book. New data have revealed much about Arcimboldo’s associations and patronage that makes the argument for a sophistic, parodistic, criticial view of Arcimboldo’s painting im-plausible.

one of the most important shifts in emphasis offered by the present book is in-deed a reconstruction of the artist’s personality and activity that emphasizes his deep and continuing engagement with painting nature, and with natural history. in these regards Arcimboldo was an heir of the leonardesque tradition, as has long been recognized. beyond that, however, he was deeply involved with other traditions of natural history as represented at the imperial court and elsewhere. The recovery of many nature studies by Arcimboldo ranks among the most important recent discov-eries concerning the artist.

Arcimboldo made numerous depictions of animals, flowers, and birds, many of which he repeated several times; these images recur in his paintings of composite

I n t r o d u c t I o n 13

heads. While many such studies have been identified in the past two decades, many more are presented here for the first time, along with newly identified studies of plants and flowers. The existence of such a large stock of nature studies by Arcim-boldo should cause major rethinking of his artistic interests in general and of his composite heads in particular.

Nature studies are, however, taken into account neither by recent critiques nor by most other previous views of Arcimboldo, which, even when they reflect upon the continuing resonance of his composite paintings, do not recognize his role in the origination of several other new genres. Yet the recovery of Arcimboldo’s nature studies highlights the fact that fantastic and humorous elements are inextricably in-tertwined with a naturalistic thrust in his art. This has indeed recently reemphasized not only how caricature and laughter have profound implications, but also how they are connected with naturalism.42

Arcimboldo must thus be regarded as much more than the inventor or perfecter of a peculiar or playful form of visual paradox. His paintings of composites, especially his invertible heads, can now be established as having had an important place in the development of the genre of independent still life in italy, as some recent scholarship has also suggested. His role in the invention of still life, in turn, has broader impli-cation—most obviously for our knowledge of the development of pictorial genres (Arcimboldo was also involved in the origin of independent painting of animals)—and recognition of his role in these developments has a bearing not only on under-standing of the history of art in italy, where there has been some acknowledgment of his accomplishment in this respect, but also of art north of the Alps. Through his work for the Habsburgs, Arcimboldo’s inventions had repercussions for art both in central Europe and in the low countries.

Another emphasis of the present book is upon Arcimboldo’s humanistic and liter-ary interests. Arcimboldo can be related to the antiquarian, collecting, and scientific activities of the imperial court: his interests were comparable to those of poets and humanists (who may of course have been the same people) both at the imperial court and also in his native lombardy, with which he remained in contact throughout his career. Not only did he write poetry but, most significantly, he chose to portray himself quite directly as a man of letters. Hence he emerges in these pages even more clearly than before as a figure with broad aspirations and connections to the world of learning and literature. This also provides a foundation for a different view of Arcim-boldo as an artist who brought the naturalistic together with poetic, humanistic, and philosophical sources and interests in the making of his pictures.

in this light, even the reading of Arcimboldo as creator of rhetorical and poetic permutation may be taken as being complementary to the allegorical reading, not as antithetical to it. Arcimboldo had humanistic and literary aspirations that were un-known to earlier interpreters. He wrote poems that add to a more complete reading of his paintings, upon which they were in fact composed.

This reading is based on renewed study of archives and objects, including recent-ly discovered information. The initial chapters of this book accordingly reconsider Arcimboldo’s biography in relation to the origins of his oeuvre. First, documentary

I n t r o d u c t I o n14

sources and material evidence will be reassessed for his activity in milan, monza, and como in the years before he entered imperial service. reconsideration of some aspects of his personal connections, biography, and style allow him to be linked with artistic milieus in lombardy, and also establish a relationship between his begin-nings as an artist and some central questions regarding his composite heads. The second chapter reexamines Arcimboldo’s career at court and provides firm evidence for the dating of his composite heads and their origins in a court milieu. The third chapter lays out Arcimboldo’s connections with humanists and poets, and his own role as a humanist and poet.

in chapter 4 the literary, poetic, and philosophical implications of Arcimboldo’s works are discussed, including the reasons for considering his paintings of compos-ites as serious jokes. chapter 5 deals with his involvement with natural history and nature painting; it presents much new evidence for his nature studies, whose analy-sis is the subject of chapter 6. chapter 7 then takes up Arcimboldo’s nature studies and composite images, his invertible paintings in particular, to reassess his role in the invention of still life and animal paintings as independent genres. it traces his sources and impact, and briefly discusses how the themes he presented resonate in an understanding of the development of still life.

This sequence of chapters culminates in the interpretation of Arcimboldo’s in-vertible heads that is offered in chapter 8, which relates the pictures to issues of imitation, fantasy, and naturalism, to sources in renaissance and classical literature, and to their own significance as serious jokes, as well as demonstrating the personal connections that establish the paramount importance of Erasmianism for Arcim-boldo’s art.

This book consequently proposes a different perspective on the apparent para-doxes in Arcimboldo’s pictures. i hope to show how Arcimboldo’s approach to se-rio-ludere, serious play, serves not just to produce imperial allegories in a seemingly joking form, but to conjoin inventive fantasy with naturalistic observation. His pic-tures are caprices of art and caprices of nature; they unite antiquarian inspiration with scientific concerns, notably those of natural history. They reveal an artist whose inventions are consonant with renaissance thought, not one who, as some recent critics have suggested, parodies, shakes, or challenges established notions—which would, after all, be highly unlikely for an imperial court artist, much of whose activity was involved in shoring up and expressing imperial majesty. Arcimboldo does have a philosophical stake in his art, but it is not of the negative or even existentialist kind proposed by some critics.

in the end, i hope not just to present another interpretation of this fascinating artist, but to suggest how a better understanding of his seemingly singular produc-tions may have broader import for the consideration of some basic issues in the his-tory of European art and culture.

17

Arcimboldo’s Lombard origins

If, like mozart, Giuseppe Arcimboldo had died at the age of thirty-five, he would have little interest for us today. What he had accomplished by 1561 would prob-ably have remained merely a footnote in the history of painting in lombardy. His composite heads earned him the acclaim of his italian contemporaries, and they have gained him the attention of artists, scholars, and lay people in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.1 but it was only at the imperial court,

where he went in 1562, that he began painting these pictures—the earliest of which is dated 1563.2

little in Arcimboldo’s earlier career anticipates these inventions. during his early years he appears on the scene as a peripatetic but minor, if multitalented, master. like many other artists of the cinquecento, he earned his living with a wide variety of jobs. in this regard he can be said to have been prepared to take on numerous tasks at the imperial court. Prior to his coming north, however, little trace can be discovered of those specific visual elements—either the naturalistic details or their aggregation—that are found his composite paintings, not to mention their more general character-istics: their complex and witty mixture of erudition, naturalism, and entertainment, or their presentation of serious content in a seemingly joking form.

While it is thus hard to imagine from the specific details of his early career how Arcimboldo arrived at his most famous inventions, some clues to their origins can be found in the milieus in which Arcimboldo worked, as well as in a consideration of his personal contacts. many sources for the composite heads, both conceptual and visual, may lie in lombardy even though the pictures were not first painted there, and other key elements and catalysts can be found in central Europe. This chap-ter offers an abbreviated account of the life and work of Arcimboldo before he went to central Europe. it discusses how some of his early experiences and contacts in

a r c I m b o l d o ’ s l o m b a r d o r I g I n s 19

italy, and some of his possible visual sources, may have eventually contributed to the conception of his composite heads, which he was to realize soon after his arrival in central Europe.

A r c I m b o L d o ’ s E A r Ly c A r E E r

it is emblematic of Arcimboldo that his composite heads provide key sources for some basic biographical data about him. While the date of 11 July 1593 for his death in milan has long been established by documents of the time,3 neither his place nor date of birth are directly recorded. His father was the painter biagio Arcimboldo, but archival information about Giuseppe’s early years is otherwise fragmentary. His ear-liest depiction of Fire (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches museum, Figure 1.1), dated 1566, bears the signature Josephus Arcimboldus Mlnensis f. Similar inscriptions appear on other works in which the artist thereby designates himself as milanese (Milanensis). A drawing (Genoa, Palazzo bianco, Figure 1.2) which portrays him as a composite head made of different kinds of of paper displays the date 1587 on the collar, while the numbers 6 1 can be read on the forehead. These numerals suggest that his birth year was 1526.4

figure 1.1 giuseppe arcimboldo, Fire, 1566.

kunsthistorisches museum, Vienna. Photo:

eric lessing / art resource, nY.

figure 1.2 giuseppe arcimboldo, Self-portrait

as a Man of Papers, 1587. Palazzo rosso,

genoa.

c h a P t e r o n e20

Giuseppe Arcimboldo probably received his first training from his father. The first known document pertaining to him, a record of an authorization for payment made on 24 december 1549, finds him working on the same project that already was oc-cupying biagio, namely supplying designs for stained-glass windows.5 However, pay-ment records for 1549 and subsequent years list Giuseppe separately from biagio, suggesting perhaps that by the time Giuseppe had begun to work for the cathedral in milan he was, as the title used for him implies, a master.

The main task for the cathedral that occupied Giuseppe in biagio’s suite was the supply of drawings that are variously described in the documents as quadri or disegni and were intended for the use of glaziers of the cathedral (pro usu invedriatarum). These were most likely cartoons, full-scale studies to be transferred to glass paint-ings, as use of the term quadro (picture) may also suggest.6 These designs were to be used in a campaign that had been renewed in 1539 to supply stained-glass windows for the cathedral, and which from 1544 to 1559 was being directed by the glazier cor-rado de mochis of cologne.7 Payments to Giuseppe for window designs are recorded for the years 1549 to 1557.8 on the basis of these documents some existing windows may be assigned to Giuseppe, with decorative patterns and human figures in scenes representing the story of Saint catherine placed over the present south entrance of the cathedral. (Figure 1.3a) From them some other, undocumented windows in the

a r c I m b o l d o ’ s l o m b a r d o r I g I n s 21

south side of the nave with stories from the biblical book of Genesis may also be at-tributed to him (Figure 1.3b).9

Throughout the time he was designing windows, Giuseppe Arcimboldo also car-ried out many other tasks for the cathedral. These included painting murals and making banners, a tabernacle, a map, insignias, coats of arms, designs for stools, and a canopy.10 Neither biagio’s nor Giuseppe’s work for the fabbrica survive, however, other than the windows that were made after their designs.

Nevertheless, the style seen in the windows executed by the Arcimboldi in the milan cathedral makes it possible to support the attribution of another early paint-ing. This is a fresco in the church of San maurizio in milan, located in the Monastero Maggiore, whose walls are covered with paintings of the later fifteenth and chiefly the sixteenth century, including works by members of the luini family and by Simone Peterzano. The third chapel on the north side of the public church, dated 1545 by an inscription, contains two murals that can be reasonably attributed to Evangelista luini.11 but the Naming of John the Baptist on the left or west wall of the third chapel can be attributed, by stylistic comparison to the stained glass windows, to Giuseppe Arcimboldo (Figure 1.4).12

figure 1.3a giuseppe arcimboldo, stained glass win-

dow. detail from The Story of Saint Catherine, 1551–(56?).

duomo, milan.

figure 1.3b giuseppe arcimboldo, stained glass

window. detail from The Daughters of Lot, 1551–(56?).

duomo, milan.

figure 1.4 giuseppe (and biagio?) arcimboldo, Naming

of Saint John the Baptist, fresco, c. 1545. chapel carretto

san maurizio al monastero maggiore, milan.

c h a P t e r o n e22

Arcimboldo was also engaged in some other activities in conjunction with the milan cathedral. These have attracted attention because it has been argued that they are to be associated with the sodality of facchini (porters). This connection has been used to support the thesis that Arcimboldo’s art contains a strong, local popular ele-ment linked with the world of the carnival. but evidence from the milan cathedral, and from documents for practices elsewhere, does not support the argument for a special connection between Arcimboldo and the facchini, or for that matter between Arcimboldo and carnival.13

Arcimboldo’s last appearance in the documents of the milan cathedral’s archives also places him in a context much different from that of popular culture or the car-nival. on 6 November 1564 Jusepe meda, another milanese artist, whose dates can now be established as 1532–1599,14 appeared before the cathedral chapter and com-plained that bernardino campi was claiming that he had been given the task of painting the shutters of the cathedral organ. campi was a well known cremonese painter who had also been meda’s master and had begun designing windows for the cathedral in 1559, the same year that Arcimboldo had ceased doing so.15 in 1564 meda says that campi had been defeated previously in competition with meda’s compagno (companion) Giuseppe Arcimboldo, and adduces as an example the mak-ing of the new gonfalone, or standard, of Saint Ambrose, patron saint of milan. Since Arcimboldo had already been paid for painting organ shutters ten years earlier, that may have provided a basis for his involvement with this similar project. in any case, in 1567 Arcimboldo received payment for drawings for the gonfalone, supporting meda’s assertion that he had been involved in making it.16 The standard of Saint Ambrose still survives in the civic collections of milan at the castello Sforzesco.17

There is a further context for the commission for the gonfalone, which meda and Arcimboldo won in competition against the team of campi and carlo Urbino da crema.18 The standard has been seen as a triumphalist expression of the new atmo-sphere sparked by the course of action initiated by carlo borromeo, the future saint who was a nephew of the milanese Pope Pius iV (pope from 1560), uncle of Federico borromeo, and who was named archbishop of milan in the year 1560. The manu-facture of the standard was a complicated procedure that was ultimately finished by other artists. it has been suggested that while Arcimboldo designed the initial com-position and meda modified those designs, carlo Urbino was also involved in the process, since a drawing by him for the standard also exists; the whole process has thus been described as one of accumulation. However, the attribution of a drawing for the gonfalone to Arcimboldo is incorrect.19

in the mid-1550s Arcimboldo also accomplished some minor tasks for other churches in milan20 and, more important, also worked in other cities. A document of 28 may 1556 indicates that meda (called Juseppe lomazzo in the relevant docu-ments) and Arcimboldo received a commission to paint the ceiling and wall of the south transept of the cathedral of monza. This commission was ratified on 10 June in monza, in the presence of Arcimboldo and meda, supporting meda’s later claim that he was Arcimboldo’s compagno. The artists contracted to paint the four evangelists and eight angels on the ceiling, as well as the tree of Jesus christ (Tree of Jesse) with

a r c I m b o l d o ’ s l o m b a r d o r I g I n s 23

fifteen prophets, mary, and John the Evangelist on the wall of the transept. Accord-ing to inferences drawn from a document of 10 december 1558 all but four figures had been completed by that date, and another document of 5 may 1559 authorized payment to the painters. The frescoes are still visible in the south transept and can be attributed with certainty to Arcimboldo and meda (Figure 1.5).21 comparisons to the milan windows and the frescoes in the south transept in monza lead to the at-tribution to Arcimboldo of yet another work, a tapestry representing the Preaching of John the baptist, now in the treasury of the monza cathedral; this tapestry may

figure 1.5 giuseppe arcim-

boldo and Juseppe meda, Tree

of Jesse, fresco, 1556–59. south

transept, duomo, monza.

c h a P t e r o n e24

have been designed by the artist around the same time he was painting the frescoes there, or even earlier (Figure 1.6).22 The various contributions of the artists involved in these projects may also be distinguished from each other, with Arcimboldo, for instance, doing much of the Tree of Jesse, including probably its prominent citrus fruits: this is one of the few signs of his early interest in naturalistic depiction.23

There are no continuing records of payments to Arcimboldo by the fabbrica of the milan cathedral after 1558. by december of this year Arcimboldo and meda had largely completed the frescoes in the south transept of the cathedral in monza. it seems more than coincidental that only a few days after a payment for them had been made in monza, Arcimboldo also received payment for tapestry designs in como, which city is of course not so far away from milan or monza. Payments for the como tapestry designs continued until 1560. A tapestry dated 1562 depicting the death of the Virgin also exists that is usually displayed in the nave of como’s cathedral (Figure 1.7).24

Arcimboldo supplied the first design for the gonfalone of Saint Ambrose also most likely around 1560. His presence in monza and como indicates that at the same time he was seeking work outside milan. monza is quite near milan, and como may have seemed a good place to turn because, as in milan, another member of the Arcim-boldo family had already been active there. This was Ambrogio Arcimboldo, brother of biagio and thus Giuseppe’s uncle, who had been resident in como from 1534 to 1537. An artist himself, Ambrogio had been responsible for painting altarpieces in San Giorgio a cremeno.25

a r c I m b o l d o ’ s l o m b a r d o r I g I n s 25

Soon even more favorable opportunities opened up elsewhere. Paolo morigia (morigi)26 says that after many entreaties, Arcimboldo left milan in 1562 to enter the service of maximilian ii. He traveled north probably toward the end of that year, and was not to return to milan for good until 1587.

There is thus surviving documentary evidence for Arcimboldo’s continuing ac-tivity in lombardy until at least 1560. in contrast, there is no evidence of any kind that he was in direct contact with the bohemian, Hungarian, and roman King, later Emperor, maximilian ii, or with any other Habsburg archduke, or their servants, before 1562 at the earliest.27 No trace exists for Arcimboldo having done work for the Habsburgs until 1563.

Yet great opportunities no doubt beckoned Arcimboldo north of the Alps in 1562. An artist was needed at the imperial Habsburg court just at the same time that the at-mosphere for artists was becoming unfavorable in milan. Arcimboldo was evidently well prepared as a figure painter to take up the job that immediately awaited him—court portraitist.28 He had already also demonstrated his ability to perform numer-ous sorts of other tasks. These multiple talents he would put to use when he entered imperial service in central Europe, where his art was to take an unexpected turn and he was soon to paint his first composite heads.

figure 1.6 giuseppe arcim-

boldo (design), Preaching

of John the Baptist, tapestry,

1550(–59?) duomo treasury,

monza.

figure 1.7 Johann karcher

after arcimboldo, Transit of

the Virgin, 1561–62. duomo,

como.

c h a P t e r o n e26

A r c I m b o L d o , t h E L o m b A r d m I L I E u , A n d

t h E L E o n A r d E s q u E L E g A c y

Although no convincing evidence exists to date the execution of Arcimboldo’s first composite heads earlier than 1563, his experiences in lombardy before that date do seem to have contributed to the genesis of their conception. Scholars have long stressed the significance of Arcimboldo’s lombard roots; a somewhat different line of interpretation is offered here. inferences from his contacts and friendships, from his style, and from other circumstantial evidence lead to an understanding of the background for Arcimboldo’s composites.

Key to these inventions are their naturalistic component and their combination of different elements. The first feature, an interest in nature that anticipates char-acteristics of the composite paintings, has long been sought in Arcimboldo’s ear-liest works. Naturalism in painting, the pictorial expression of such interest, is a long-flowing current in the art of lombardy which may be traced back at least to the animal studies of Giovannino de’ Grassi and other artists of the international Gothic.29 They too depicted animals and plants, and these depictions have been seen as formative for lombard painting. Numerous exhibitions have accordingly linked Arcimboldo with this long-lasting tendency in lombard art.30

A concern with definition of vegetation has also been noticed in early works by Arcimboldo. This has been seen in the monza tapestry representing Saint John the baptist preaching.31 Fruits and flowers may be noted in the borders of the monza and como tapestries, and festoons of fruits mixed with angel heads are also notice-able in the Saint catherine window of the milan cathedral. Cedri, large citrus fruits familiar in italy, are displayed prominently in the Tree of Jesse fresco in monza. These may be related to details in Arcimboldo’s composite heads, for similar cedri ap-pear growing out of the trunk of Winter. However, the ubiquity of festoons in italian sixteenth-century art has long been noted, and so it may not be from such details alone that Arcimboldo’s composite heads originated.32

While festoons may indicate interest in the depiction of naturalistic details, other elements also found in contemporaneous art in lombardy equally seem to deserve attention. For example, Arcimboldo’s early designs for windows in milan derive from the standard sacred iconography of the time, and were taken primarily from Gaudenzio Ferrari.33 Among the artists active in milan during Arcimboldo’s youth Gaudenzio, active there from 1537 until his death in 1546, seems to have been important for several aspects of Arcimboldo’s art. His blocky forms and broad han-dling of draperies could be attributed to one of the major local painterly traditions of the cinquecento, that of bramantino, while as the juxtaposition of paintings by Gaudenzio and bernardino luini in the como cathedral suggests, they also con-trast with paintings of the luini, who represent the direct line from leonardo. on a younger painter active in the 1540s in milan, Gaudenzio’s formal vocabulary would have made a fresh impression: Arcimboldo could easily have seen his major works, such as the Flagellation and Crucifixion, painted in 1542 in Santa maria delle Gra-

a r c I m b o l d o ’ s l o m b a r d o r I g I n s 27

zie, where Arcimboldo also worked. These observations also serve to remind us that Arcimboldo’s origins as an artist must be sought in the realm of figure painting.

The line in lombardy that seems to lead to Arcimboldo is, however, not the same line that leads from Gaudenzio or even from those more general tendencies toward naturalism that are found in lombard painting. both the naturalistic component and any other features of Arcimboldo’s art are, rather, to be related to another more definable source. it is the legacy of leonardo that looms longest and largest among his lombard antecedents.

Arcimboldo has in fact been related to leonardo da Vinci since the eighteenth century. An inventory of the Vienna Schatzkammer compiled in 1750 listed a com-posite picture by “Arcimboldoff” made out of garden fruits as being from the school of “leonardi da Vinci.”34 At the time that Arcimboldo was rediscovered in the 1930s, his painting of Winter (Figure 1.8) was thought to originate in leonardo’s carica-tures; the treatment of bark in its neck was said to reveal the artist to be a “penetrat-ing observer of nature trained at leonardo’s school,” and it was said that leonardo’s “tragically merciless spirit becomes a macabre joke in the work of the extravagant Arcimboldo.”35 Another of the first monographs on Arcimboldo suggested that leo-nardo’s manuscripts might have been available to Arcimboldo in milan, and that they had inspired his composite heads.36 more recent views that derive Winter from leonardo’s caricatures, or argue that the intense naturalism of leonardo’s followers like cesare da Sesto and bernazzano has been “assimilated into milanese painting in the more capricious context of the work of Arcimboldi,”37 thus belong to a long line of interpretation. Arcimboldo’s early demonstration of versatility also recalls leonardo, who was the towering figure active in milan in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. it may even be that Arcimboldo’s ability to adapt himself to vari-ous tasks was related to the ideal provided by leonardo.

The connections leading from leonardo to Arcimboldo may nevertheless still be clarified and elaborated. Although it is not possible for Arcimboldo to have known leonardo personally, since leonardo left milan for good in 1512 and died in France before Arcimboldo was born in 1526, Arcimboldo was probably well acquainted with several aspects of his oeuvre. For example, he could easily have seen some of leo-nardo’s paintings in milan: the Last Supper is found in the refectory of Santa maria delle Grazie.

leonardo’s legacy was being kept alive in milan; his disciple and assistant Fran-cesco melzi had inherited the contents of his studio, including most of his manu-scripts. melzi returned to milan and kept the contents there until his death near milan in 1570.38 bernardino luini, another disciple and associate of leonardo, probably also inherited some of leonardo’s materials. lomazzo reports that ber-nardino’s son, Aurelio luini, had a book of drawings by leonardo, which probably consisted of his so called grotesque heads.39 lomazzo and later sources also say that another book with leonardo’s drawings was owned by Giovanni Ambrogio Figino. A recent study has suggested that these lost works of leonardo are reflected in some drawings by Figino himself.40 Through these and other means, leonardo’s heritage remained known in the artistic ambient of milan.41

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Arcimboldo can be associated with all of these figures. For instance, he has been connected to bernardino luini through his father biagio.42 A signed portrait of bia-gio by bernardino (london, british museum) provides evidence that the two artists knew each other personally. Together with comparisons between windows attribut-able to biagio and bernardino, this observation long ago led to the hypothesis that the younger Arcimboldo could also have had access to leonardo’s materials.43 much more information has also been found to support this old thesis.

documents indicate that biagio Arcimboldo was connected to the luini family by more than a portrait drawing. biagio was witness to an act of 9 November 1534 that involved the resolution of the inheritance of bernardino, who had died in 1532, by his sons Tobia, Evangelista, Giovan Pietro, and Aurelio. Twenty years later biagio was again found in close association with the luini family: in 1554 he was selected to settle a dispute involving a division of goods belonging to the brothers, all of whom were artists.44

Some visual evidence confirms the close connection between the Arcimboldi and the luini during the 1530s and 1540s, which were formative years for Giuseppe. Two altarpieces painted by biagio’s brother, Giuseppe’s uncle Ambrogio, in cremeno near como closely adapt both the composition and figure style of works by bernardino luini. As noted above, the style of works in the milan cathedral also makes it pos-sible to confirm the attribution to Arcimboldo of a fresco in the church of San mau-rizio in milan, at the Monastero Maggiore: there Giuseppe must have worked in close proximity to, if not alongside, several members of the luini family, who had done frescoes in the same church. Frescoes probably attributable to Evangelista luini are found in the same chapel with those attributable to Giuseppe.

The lifespan of Aurelio luini, another son of bernardino and brother of Evange-lista, parallels that of Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Aurelio was born circa 1530, and both he and Arcimboldo died in 1593. A year before their death, they were both celebrated by morigia as the major contemporary painters in milan. Given biagio Arcimboldo’s familiarity with Aurelio luini and his father, it is likely that Giuseppe and Aurelio also knew each other. in any case, they worked in the same church in milan, San maurizio. Through such connections with the luini it seems likely that Giuseppe would have gained knowledge of the leonardesque tradition at an early point in his career, before 1550, either directly in the form of leonardo’s manuscripts or as medi-ated through the art of the luini.

during the 1550s and also around 1560, Arcimboldo could also have come into contact with other major representatives of leonardo’s legacy. These include melzi, Girolamo (Gerolamo) Figino, and carlo Urbino. in 1559 meda and Arcimboldo re-ceived payment for the frescoes in the cathedral at monza after their work had been favorably appraised by two experts, one of whom was Girolamo Figino.45 The com-mission for the shutters of the milan cathedral’s organ could again have placed Arci-mboldo in contact with Girolamo Figino and with melzi as well. in 1554 Arcimboldo received payment for his work on the organ shutters , and in 1564 he was invoked by meda in the competition to paint additional shutters. melzi and Girolamo Figino had been the two experts who were employed by the cathedral chapter in delibera-

figure 1.8 arcimboldo, Win-

ter, 1563. kunsthistorisches

museum, Vienna. Photo: eric

lessing / art resource, nY.

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tions of 1559 regarding this project; this was the same year that Figino was called to monza cathedral to assess Arcimboldo and meda’s frescoes. Figino was also again called upon to help with deliberations in the conflict over the shutters in 1564.46 it is thus likely that Arcimboldo and he met during these years.

At the same time it is also likely that Arcimboldo came into contact with carlo Urbino, and probably that he knew works by him. carlo Urbino was one of the com-petitors for the commission for the organ shutters, but more important, as men-tioned above, he had also been actively involved in designing the gonfalone,47 for which Arcimboldo had also supplied drawings, and they may have encountered each other directly during the process of design and execution. carlo Urbino is also said to have made paintings that were composites like Arcimboldo’s, and it is possible that the artists competed in this realm as well.

in addition to melzi, carlo Urbino was deeply involved in the study of leonar-do’s manuscripts and drawings. most of the manuscripts had remained in melzi’s possession after leonardo’s death, and melzi had used them to compile a selection of leonardo’s comments on art, which is known as the Codex Urbinas and which later generations have called leonardo’s Treatise on Painting.48 but carlo Urbino also used leonardo’s manuscripts to compose an illustrated treatise based on leonardo’s drawings and thoughts on perspective, motion, light, and proportion, known as the Codex Huygens (New York, Pierpont morgan library and museum).49

Girolamo Figino had been a pupil of melzi: various bits of evidence demonstrate that he was also engaged in the study of leonardo’s manuscripts. He may have been involved in the production of the Codex Urbinas as well—and even if the older attri-bution of the Codex Huygens to him is no longer generally accepted, he certainly was familiar with it.50 other sources indicate that Figino shared the interest evinced by the Codex Huygens in studies of human proportion. Furthermore, his drawings reveal that he had closely studied leonardo’s drawings and had adapted his drawing tech-niques for working from nature.51 lomazzo, who reports on some of these drawings, also owned sheets drawn by leonardo himself.52

Girolamo Figino may have been a relative of the better known Ambrogio Figino. if so, it is possible that he had owned the book of leonardo’s drawings that in the 1580s lomazzo reports was in Ambrogio’s possession.53 in any case, like Girolamo, Am-brogio owned drawings by leonardo, including his so-called grotesque caricatures, which he can be demonstrated to have studied closely.54 like leonardo, Ambrogio was much concerned with studies of physiognomy—the art or science of judging character and disposition from the features of the face or form of the body—and his studies in this area have also been seen to derive from leonardo’s drawings.55

Ambrogio was an important figure in Arcimboldo’s milieu. He is the eponymous character in the dialogue of Gregorio comanini, Il Figino, which supplies much in-formation on Arcimboldo. He was linked by several other writers with Arcimboldo, who definitely knew him. Arcimboldo also tried to get him to do paintings for the imperial court.56

Whatever the conduit, Arcimboldo could therefore have received many stimuli from leonardo and from the tradition that followed him. The parallels between

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leonardo’s varied activities and Arcimboldo’s later work for court are so manifold and so striking that Arcimboldo could be called the Habsburgs’ leonardo. like leonardo, he was a court artist who seems to have made relatively little for the im-perial court of what we might usually call art, in the form of paintings—but, also like leonardo, he did many other things. Tasks set by the court may of course have determined what an artist in its employ was supposed to do, but in comparison with all other artists active at the Habsburg court, Arcimboldo was truly protean, to echo comanini’s description of him. like leonardo, he was involved with projects to control water, with codes and ciphers, and with machines, festivals, music, and musical instruments.57

leonardo himself articulated the ideal of the universal painter that corresponds to the myriad activities in which he engaged. This ideal would certainly have been current in milan during Arcimboldo’s youth, since it is expressed in melzi’s compila-tion of the Treatise on Painting from leonardo’s manuscripts. There, under the rubric “How a painter is not worth of praise unless he is universal,” it is said:

do you not see how many different animals and trees, too, and grasses and flowers there are, the diversity of mountainous regions and plains, fountains, rivers, cit-ies, public and private buildings, machines designed to benefit mankind, various costumes, decorations and arts? All these things have equal use and value to him whom you would call a good painter.58

The first part of this statement points to an important element in leonardo’s work that also nurtured the strong lombard current of interest in the study and depiction of nature. However one regards the lombard tradition on naturalism antecedent to him, leonardo’s masterful renditions of plants, animals, and human beings are dis-tinctive when compared with it. His careful attention to detail and his treatment of surface, and of the way light and color modify each other and our perception of ob-jects, is not present earlier in lombard art. He thus may be seen to provide a specific and significant source of visual inspiration for lombard artists who followed him in the sixteenth century.

Several artists who may be linked to Arcimboldo demonstrate their attention to nature studies in the leonardesque mode. For example, melzi clearly used drawings from nature found in leonardo’s manuscripts in his own paintings, especially for depictions of plants and flowers. Two examples may suffice. in a depiction of rhea Sylvia, probably executed in the second quarter of the sixteenth century (Figure 1.9), melzi paints the vestal virgin with a plant conspicuously held in her hand that seems to step from the pages of leonardo’s drawings.59 in a painting of the Holy Family (Prague, Národní Galerie) he also shows plant forms that might otherwise seem ex-traneous to the subject, but which recall leonardo’s studies.

A number of paintings assigned to Girolamo Figino also reveal his emulation of leonardo’s figure style and compositions and his use of leonardesque nature stud-ies. in several pictures, Figino places tell-tale plant studies in the foreground.60 These elements, like similar features found in melzi’s pictures, can be closely compared to

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the sorts of plant studies that leonardo executed, as seen for example in drawings now at Windsor castle.61

Nature studies and an interest in naturalia resembling details in the work of leonardo are also found in many paintings of the luini, especially bernardino—for example, in a picture (ottawa, National Gallery of canada) in which a mandrake is evident.62 bernardino also seems to have done drawings of animals, as is suggested by his painting of a lamb held by a shepherd in his painting of the Nativity (New orleans, louisiana, museum of Art). bernardino’s son Aurelio likewise displayed an interest depicting animals and birds. While not derived directly from leonardo’s studies, animals are evident in his frescoes of the story of Noah in the nun’s choir in San maurizio: although the compositions may be derived in part from German prints, the attention he gives to individual details of the animals does evince an in-terest in painting naturalia.63

Aside from this naturalism, here meaning an interest in the study and depiction of the natural world, another side to leonardo’s concept of the universal painter also may have affected Arcimboldo: the role of fantasy that is imbricated in the observa-tion and representation of nature. The importance of the projective power of the imagination is suggested by another famous passage in the Codex Urbinas which is also echoed in other portions of that text:

He is not universal who does not love equally all the elements in painting, as when one who does not like landscapes holds them to be a subject for cursory and straightforward investigation—just as our botticelli said such study was of no use because be merely throwing a sponge soaked in a variety of colours at a wall there would by on the wall a stain in which could be seen a beautiful landscape. He was indeed right that in such a stain various inventions are to be seen. i say that a man may seek out in such a stain heads of men, various animals, battles, rocks, seas, clouds, woods and other similar things.64

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leonardo says something similar in another passage where he remarks that paint-ers can stimulate their ingégno for various inventions by studying spots on walls, or composite stones. Provided that the artist already knows how to render well all as-pects of things he wishes to imitate, confuse cose can stimulate the fantasia, or imagi-nation. 65

These passages on how fantasia can be stimulated to simulate nature belong to a continuing renaissance discussion of the power of the imagination to create or invent forms. The description of images seen in spots is related to several common-places or topoi of ancient writing. one of these is the Aristotelian idea of the power of the imagination to project images into things such as clouds; another is the idea of the image made by chance. For instance, in addition to botticelli and leonardo, Pie-ro di cosimo was also said to derive compositions from spots on walls or in clouds. cinquecento theorists such as Antonio doni and G.b. Armenini, a contemporary of Arcimboldo who was familiar with the lombard scene, spoke similarly about this topic. in a letter that Arcimboldo later wrote to accompany drawings he had made for the silk industry, he showed his cognizance of this discourse, used some of its vocabulary, and demonstrated its relevance to understanding how his fantastic cre-ations were related to the natural world.66

leonardo gave another clue about how the fantastic may be related to the natu-ral in his discussion of how to make imaginary creatures out of confuse cose, objects that seem confused together. The Treatise on Painting talks about how if you wish to make an animal finto (a fictive creature) seem natural, take “the head of a mastiff or a hound for a head, the eyes of a cat, the ears of a porcupine, the nose of a greyhound, the brow of a lion, the temples of an old cock and the neck of a turtle.”67 in his vita (life) of leonardo, Giorgio Vasari reports a story to which lomazzo also alludes in his Idea of how leonardo painted a head of medusa on a shield by taking into a room lizards, newts, maggots, snakes, butterflies, locusts, bats, and other animals, “out of which he composed a horrible and terrible monster.”68 Significantly, this shield was eventually purchased by the duke of milan and apparently was to be seen in milan when Vasari was writing, circa 1550.69

The treatment of monstrous images as heads may also resonate with leonardo’s notions. in another informative passage in the Treatise on Painting, leonardo men-tions monstrous forms in the context of a discussion about developing a repertory of faces. He advocates sketching faces as one sees them, so that one will later be able to draw a face from memory. This notion helps lead to a different understanding of Arcimboldo’s early work as a figure painter, and it brings to mind an argument made more than half a century ago by E.H. Gombrich, who suggested that although leonardo’s so called caricatures might seem humorous, grotesque, and fantastic, they need not be distortions of reality—and thus need not be considered grotesque per se.70 rather, as scholars before and after Gombrich have also suggested, they have to do with an interest in physiognomy.71 The ancient physiognomic tradition inherited by the renaissance is based on the system of natural correspondences, ac-cording to which the superficial impression of a creature reveals its nature. As more recent scholarship has indicated, it was precisely leonardo’s studies of comparative

figure 1.9 francesco melzi,

Rhea Sylvia, oil on canvas,

c. 1525. bonnefantenmuseum,

maastricht.

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physiognomy that interested and were employed by lombard artists in Arcimboldo’s ambit—notably Ambrogio Figino, as mentioned.72 Gombrich added that the physi-ognomics revealed in leonardo’s character heads also had to do with the pathog-nomonics of beauty.73 They extended the artist’s vocabulary of forms and, like his creation of a dragon, they have the power of art to stun or shock. in all of this there is nothing necessarily comic or popular, but, as leonardo himself suggested, there is much to do with the processes of portraiture.

This physiognomic interest of leonardo’s studies—not some comic, popular, or in this sense grotesque vein—is what is also to be related to Arcimboldo, and even the term “grotesque” is probably a misnomer. leonardo’s so-called caricatures no doubt bear a striking resemblance to Arcimboldo’s heads. They were certainly studied in lombardy through the sixteenth century, as the multiple copies—among them a volume containing grotesque heads (now in the Spencer collection, New York Public library)—now suggest.74 most recently, copies after leonardo’s “grotesque” heads, attributed to melzi, have also been compared to Arcimboldo.75

in this light it is important to remember that it was as a portraitist (contrafet-ter) that Arcimboldo first appears on the imperial rolls in Vienna, and it is in this capacity that he is otherwise first documented in Habsburg service. A concern with portraiture may have led him to turn to the physiognomic tradition. in any case, it seems that an interest in the depiction of figure types would lead to those elements that seem to be caricatural entering into his art; they can be found in his composite heads.

The leonardesque tradition could therefore have piqued Arcimboldo’s penchant to fantasy while simultaneously encouraging a predilection for naturalism; earlier scholarship has noted the relevance of both aspects of leonardo’s art for Arcimbol-do’s inventions. it has long been remarked in reference to Arcimboldo’s Winter that what makes him a member of the “leonardo school” is that he is a close observer of nature.76 on the other hand, in both principle and practice Arcimboldo’s composite heads are obviously products of his imagination. They rely, moreover, on the behold-er’s own projective imagination for resolution. They are composed out of various objects, and they provoke a reaction.

Arcimboldo may thus have drawn inspiration from leonardesque traditions for the naturalistic and fantastic elements that are combined in the composite heads. He may, for example, have been stimulated by leonardo or his followers to undertake his first essays in nature drawing, which also engage the fantastic. A drawing that represents his earliest surviving venture in working from nature is of a chameleon (Figure 1.10).77 This and a drawing of a lizard and salamander may have been done in milan before he went north. Whenever they were done, they recall the story of how leonardo made monstrous-looking creatures out of lizards and other animals.78

However, while lombard artists of the period of Arcimboldo’s youth may often have painted rocks, flowers, and plants that could have been taken from the pages of leonardo, this is never the case with Arcimboldo himself. Arcimboldo’s depictions of natural forms, while comparable to studies and paintings in the tradition stemming from leonardo, are not derived directly from leonardo himself. As we shall see, they

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are based on different sources, including