Four Seasons in One Head, Giuseppe Arcimboldo (c.1590)

Four Seasons in One Head, Giuseppe Arcimboldo (c.1590) Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s Four Seasons in One Head is a late-career marvel—part botanical fantasy, part memento mori. Known for his surreal composite portraits, Arcimboldo here fuses flowers, fruits, and gnarled branches into a single visage, merging spring’s blossoms, summer’s fruit, autumn’s harvest, and winter’s bare wood into one haunting countenance. Unlike the playful whimsy of his earlier “Seasons” and “Elements” series, this work carries a darker, more introspective tone, its twisting tree trunk and shadowed features evoking Leonardo da Vinci’s physiognomic studies. Painted upon his return to Milan, the piece may be read as the artist’s own reflection in the “winter” of his life—a summation of a career spent transforming nature into allegory. The engaging three-quarter pose departs from his usual strict profiles, lending the face a deeper psychological presence. At once imaginative and unsettling, Four Seasons in One Head is Ar