Arcimboldo
Skira 2017
Italian version of the catalogue and English translation of the room panels by Scriptum
From 20 October to 11 February 2018, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica at Palazzo Barberini is hosting the first ever monographic Arcimboldo exhibition in Rome. The show features some of the most famous “composite heads” by the Lombard artist: burlesque portraits executed by combining objects or elements of the same kind, such as fruit, vegetables, fish, birds or books. The art of Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526-1593) is typical of his time, especially when he playfully seeks the hidden meaning of things: the relationship between the part and the whole, the correspondences between macrocosm and microcosm, and the enigmatic mood (as in the famous reversible still lifes).