SNAP # 32 – Do you recognize the name?  Giuseppe Arcimboldo?  Doesn’t ring a bell?

Skokloster Castle, Skokloster by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, courtesy Smithsonian Magazine

Two years ago I met Arcimboldo during an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. He was hanging on the wall. http://www.giuseppe-arcimboldo.org/

Perhaps Arcimboldo, an Italian painter who is now 485 years old, got shoved aside by the likes of Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, Tintoretto and Caravaggio, artists who flourished during the Italian Renaissance. Although destined to be a side story, Arcimboldo (1527-1593) painted brilliant portrait heads created entirely of fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books. These painted representations, unique collections of objects, were arranged to form a recognizable likeness of the portrait subject.

Rudolph II by Giuseppe Arcimboldo vertumnus.jpeg

This artist was playful, imaginative, all about nature and fantasy during a European artistic period that was somber, dealing with religious themes and Greek and Roman mythology. His work, displayed in a 2010 National Gallery exhibition entitled, “Arcimboldo, 1526-1593, Nature and Fantasy”, was memorable, each portrait brimming with delight.

I had an hour to meet this artist but I wanted more time with him. So, I brought him home. In researching Arcimboldo, I discovered  Piatnik, a Viennese playing card company founded in 1824. http://www.piatnik.com/  Today Pianik also markets games, producing 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles of paintings by well-know artists. Seurat. Van Gogh. Klimt. Renoir. Caravaggio. And, Arcimboldo. I $napped that one up.

A 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle produced by Piatnik

Summer by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, in 1000 pieces

If you want to know and understand an artist’s work better, put one of his paintings together piece by piece by piece,1,000 times. In Arcimboldo’s painting, Summer, 1563, I am seeing fruits and vegetables as they appeared to his eye in the 16th Century. Some of the included produce, I only am now discovering, as I look for the puzzle pieces.

Next, I will be moving on to Velazquez‘  four portraits of Infantin Margarita Teresa. Then, Klimt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer .

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I by Gustav Klimt

There’s nothing puzzling about this SNAP:  Study art. Do a jigsaw.