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Giuseppe Arcimboldo:
Vertumnus
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Giuseppe Arcimboldo
The Habsburg Emperor Rudolf II as Vertumnus
1590-91
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Although they may seem like a parody of portraiture altogether to
today's spectator, Giuseppe Arcimboldo's "teste composte" (composite
heads), as a contemporary theoretician of art, Giovanni Paolo
Lomazzo, called them, were generally given a positive reception when
they were first shown. Partly, they were viewed as "grilli", as
jokes, capriccios, or "chimaera". Set in relation to Horace's basic
precept of "delectare et prodesse" (to be pleasing and useful), they
could have a deeper meaning, too, making their apparent banality the
object of scholarly discourse. Futhermore, many of these heads,
although composed as accurately observed collections of different
bits and pieces of reality (thus: personifications of the seasons,
of the elements, of various professions), were actually intended as
portraits and bore considerable resemblance to their sitters. In so
doing, however, they were not thought disrespectful, but often
viewed as acts of homage to the emperors Arcimboldo served as "court
counterfeiter". (He was responsible, too, for the design of sets for
courtly festivals and theatre productions). The "M" "embroidered" in
the stawcoat worn by the allegorical figure of Winter, for
example - like the Summer painting, this was signed in 1563 -
is a reference to Emperor Maximilian II, who was crowned King of
Bohemia and Hungary in the same year. The personification of
Fire, executed in 1566, consisting of a match, an oil-lamp,
a flint, a candle, burning wood, barrels of cannon and mouths of
flintlocks, also contains an allusion to the Emperor. Hung over a
coat-of-arms (showing the twin eagles of the Habsburgs) on the end
of a bejewelled necklace around the figure's neck, is a Golden
Fleece, an order founded by the Burgundian Philip the Good, an
ancestor of the Habsburgs. The portrait's intention is even more
pronounced in Arcimboldo's Vertumnus. The god of
vegetation referred to here is Rudolf II who, according to Lomazzo,
had asked the artist to make something amusing for him. The protean
versatility which mythology ascribed to Vertumnus is
attributed in this act of homage to the Emperor, with his vast
variety of different fields of influence and activity. At the same
time, the painting refers us to a principle of aesthetic
metamorphosis which Comanini explains in 257 lines of verse in his
somewhat verbose "Canzoniere" (1609). Here, Vertumnus calls himself
a picture of deformity, bound to make people laugh. But paradox has
it that ugliness of this kind is more beautiful than beauty itself.
The chaos of the composition, it is said, relates to primaeval
chaos, in which everything was mixed up. Arcimboldo, whose art,
according to Comanini, outdoes even that of the antique painter
Zeuxis, creates the illusion that we are looking at parts of the
body when he is really showing us spiked ears of June corn, summer
fruits etc. In this sense, the apparent chaos of the composition
forms a unity, just as Rudolf II comprises many different things in
one person. The ugliness of the figure is compared to that of the "Silen"
admired by Plato (Socrates, in other words), who was apparently a
"monster" on the outside, but whose inward qualities were quite
magnificent.
Norbert Schneider
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Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Fire
1566 |
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_______________________
_______________________
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Blessed Be the Fruits of Culture
Prague around 1600
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Look at the apple, look at the peach, how round and full of life,
cheeks to right and left; notice, too, my eyes, of which one cerise,
the other mulberry. Outside I look a monster, inside I bear noble
traits, concealing a royal portrait.
Don Gregono Comanini
The Vertumnus of Arcimboldo
1591
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Alchemists attempting to make gold, astrologers studying the stars and the
constellations and physicists desiring to build a machine of perpetual motion
and to square the circle were amongst the Laputan circle of scholars that
Emperor Rudolf II (1576—1612) assembled at Hradcany castle in Prague. The most
important member of the Habsburg dynasty ever to reside there, Rudolf II was
renowned as a generous patron of the arts. Nonetheless, many of his
contemporaries were convinced that his hobbies kept him from the more pressing
business of ruling. They were particularly suspicious of the Emperors passion
for all things arcane: mythology, occult phenomena and the mysterious powers of
nature. In short, the Emperor was regarded as an introverted weakling who was
incapable of making decisions. Needless to say, Rudolf could afford to ignore
such objections. He was supported in all his interests by a fatherly friend, a
man of the "keenest intellectual powers", who was as highly respected as widely
read and scholarly. This cultured man came from Milan and was named Giuseppe
Arcimboldo. In his youth, Arcimboldo had designed stained-glass windows for
Milan Cathedral. In 1562 he was called by Emperor Ferdinand I, Rudolf s
grandfather, to the Habsburg Court, where he stayed on to serve three
generations of the dynasty with great loyalty. He is first mentioned in the
imperial records of 1565 as an official portrait painter to the Court. However,
he was not just a painter. "Arcimboldo's noble intellect invented a great many
clever, charming and unusual things for the magnificent revels held at Court", a
contemporary reported. The masques Arcimboldo designed as settings for those
court festivities must have been impressive. He once staged a mythological
parade with real elephants and fake dragons, which were really horses in
disguise. Today Arcimboldo is remembered primarily for his witty allegorical
paintings. Flowers, fruits, fishes, birds, roots and even books are ingeniously
arranged to form recognisable portraits. Drawing on botany, landscape
architecture and hunting, Arcimboldo found all the inspiration he needed in the
Habsburg "Wunderkammer", or cabinet of curiosities, which was overflowing with
marvels: giant shells, sword fish, mummies, rare precious stones, stuffed
animals and exotic artefacts from India. There was even a "devil confined in a
glass". Arcimboldo did not look on his paintings as mere conceits in the
Renaissance tradition; he meant them to be profoundly symbolic. The portrait of
Rudolf II as Vertumnus, the Roman god of vegetation and the
seasons, was certainly not meant as a travesty or a parody. On the contrary, the
court portrait painter's intention was to honour his Emperor as the
personification of generous patronage and cultural enlightenment. Arcimboldo's
homage to his patron did not help Rudolf politically, however, for his brother
Matthias still succeeded in deposing him. His reason for doing so was that
Rudolf was no longer capable of reigning, owing to so many other distractions.
K. Reichold, B. Graf
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The jewel in the Bohemian crown: The Hradcany castle ward in
Prague
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EXPLORATION
Arcimboldo
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