I found his work very scary as a child. Now I love them…first, his ability to paint food items, foliage and other objects from nature is extraordinary. Second, the way he creates people from these objects is wondrous…like someone threw Bosch, Alice in Wonderland and Fantastic Beasts into a big old bowl and tossed them together into an magical anthropomorphic salad. Ok that was strained, but trying to describe his work is not that easy! Finally, the contrast between his work and everything else from the time is so unexpected and delightful.

He was way ahead of his time, his work looks so modern

My A level piece was inspired by Acrimboldo. I remember seeing Autumn in an Italian cook book when I was young, the fascination I had with the art made me fall in love with cooking too

This got me thinking how bizarre this must have seemed when there was no bombardment of images like today - no movies, no memes, no animations, fewer books, etc. When I imagine it this way, his quote makes more sense to me. Like what a "feast" for the eyes and the brain!

When looking at these paintings I always had this "uncanny valley" feeling that you get when looking at certain robots or 3D animated characters. I think it's because the artist was able to effectively use certain fruits, vegetables, plants and animals (like the round pinkish colored apples for puffy full cheeks or the pear for a big nose or those little fruits right below the eyes to resemble these saggy skin parts older people get there) that almost resemble the real body parts in their shape and arranged those to make the face appear for humans. And that's exactly what evokes this uncanny feeling for me, because it looks kinda similar to a real human but is still different. I find it hard to explain but in 3D design it's similar, you have these 3D parts of the character that resemble human features but they are off by some amount to make it look weird because they are correctly arranged together and Form a complete image of a human being.

His painting takes an incredible amount of skill and knowledge of textures, shape and anatomy. To be able to paint all those different plants, animals, food and object in such detail is something to admire.

It isn't a random thing to see faces in cars, these days most cars are designed that way. Someone did a study on car sales and discovered the cars that had faces like animals sold better. So car designers began to deliberately make faces. Take a look at some of the most expensive cars, many look like snakes and other predators. Big macho pickup trucks look like Bulldogs and Rams.

I love your videos. Archimboldo is a favorite. As a child of the 50s, the pharmacy my family used had posters in the archimboldo style but consisting of sugary candies, starchy vegetables, bread, doughnuts and unhealthy foods. I loved gazing and analyzing these ‘ugly’ portraits and making the connection between bad food and ugly faces. You are much more entertaining than the art history professors I had at the U.W.

I love these crazy paintings. They are actually amazing and full of beauty. All the different animals and produce, Looks so real. As a kid I would lay in bed and stare at the popcorn ceiling and see all kinds of faces and objects.

All I can imagine is Maximillian scanning through the paintings, nodding to himself, chuckling here and there and then “haha! A MONKEY! BRILLIANT!” Those are fun paintings. And this is perhaps plebeian of me, but, this legitamtly reminds of the art design of the Dark Souls games and especially Elden Ring. On one level simple shock body horror but it peer into (with editing tools) faces of some of the game’s bosses, you’ll see this happen where can recognize human features etc in what is other wise a visual nightmare. K, plebeian nerd moment over lol

I think these paintings are definitely crazy and weird. But they’re also wonderful masterpieces. I can’t believe how old they are.

It appears that making recognizable paintings of human faces composed of fruits, vegetables, and other items became a popular way for painters to show off their artistic abilities.

I love those fruit portrait paintings. The lighting, the elegance. I love it.

Remember having an art assignment when I was in school to use food to create a portrait. Found his work really fascinating and quirky at the time.

My art class in elementary had us make self portraits made of fruits and vegetables.

I love The Four Seasons in One Head. It's so scary but beautiful.

The commentary and editing on this one are really next level. More of this style please. It's makes art a lot more fun.

I used to go to a restaurant which had paintings of figures that were also hiding another picture within it. One had women with bread that made a skull (I think) and another of a couple which made another picture inside that I cannot remember. I wish I could recall the artist's name, however they were really fascinating. I enjoyed staring at them immensely.

I've loved his works since I was small, not until now that I've learned his name! While I was growing up watching and reading the fantasy genre, Arcimboldo's art is the perfect pairing for my imagination of talking tree people and faeries!

Wow!This is actually beautiful.His style is unique and he's such a skilled artist.I agree "There is a certain ugliness more beautiful than beauty" wonderful quote btw.His bizzare style is what makes it beautiful,also i love the details in his artworks..

The detail when zoomed in.. 🤯 The skill 👏👏👏👏

they're genius imo

It's cleverly done. I've always found this sort of picture unsettling. I recall one of the Green Man that frightened me.

Most comments come from people who are very art familiar, I am not, but I enjoy it very much. The Four Seasons is very much my kind of Art. Artists (a collective including Jesters) also pointed out weaknesses in society, most often focused on government or mass stupidity. I appreciate this and I am learning slowly, how to look at paintings with different eyes.

6 years of Art history in the 90s. Travelled the world and experienced art. Bringing your content to alot of creative under privilege youth. Thank you for bringing the back story of art! Anger, passion, injustice, sexism, violence, motivation, survival. Art is the visual documentation of history, outrage and change. Brovo!!

I'm so glad I found your channel. Your videos are lovely, educational and informative 💗🙏🏼

Love this channel so much! ✨ I hope you keep making videos like this one 😭I like the way you explain things, very entertaining and informative. Great analysis, as always! 💗

I’ve seen these many times, but until now did not know the story of the artist. Thank you very much.

Your posts are always fascinating!! I’ve learned so much!👍👍👍

I love the creativity. Awesome.

The personality of the artist along with the combination of both seen and unseen powers of the world, make plant life so humanized.

Saw his paintings at the louvre, very intriguing :)

thank you so much!

Honestly, so incredibly talented. How hard is it to make something look like two things at once? A tree, and a face. A bowl of meat, and a head. How incredible.

your video made me appreciate these paintings and find them beautiful, i remember seeing prints of these portraits in classrooms and doctor offices growing up, and at the time I did think they were "ugly" but really looking at them they are so skillyfull constructed, and the elements that make up the portrait are beuaitful

I absolutely adored this - thank you so much! Arcimboldo's works have fascinated me since I discovered them as a child. I learned of pareidolia (sp?) through them and have been delighting in this brain trick ever since. Your elucidations and gentle humour are a really satisfying experience to have - thank you so much!

After watching and listening to many of your vids, I find myself now wanting these prints in my home. You are costing me a lot of money!!!!

I have never been able to fully understand the repulsion I feel for Arcimboldo’s paintings despite my great admiration for his artistry and innovation. Whenever I visit the KHM in Wien, I avoid his paintings at all costs. They make me feel uneasy, almost disgusted. Due to this, I could never bring myself to look at the paintings in detail, so having your video guide me through them was very helpful. I find Spring quite bearable, but the others confusingly unsettling and definitely not aesthetically pleasing. I think it is because his portraits convey features that are not usually associated with a healthy or “beautiful” human face: highly textured, bumpy, gnarled, and intensely shaded. Also, the inorganic, purely functional combination of very organic elements makes me feel conflicted. The elements the heads are made out of are not by themselves “ugly” (quite the contrary, actually; I especially love the plump peach in Summer), but their re-contextualization in the portraits undermines their individual beauty/aesthetic. What I gather from Arcimboldo’s paintings is a (bad) sense of “too much”: too much disturbance, too much effort for resemblance (i.e. inorganic) - very much unlike Bosch or Bruegel, for example, though. My sentiments for Arcimboldo’s paintings could probably also be explained by the concept of the “uncanny valley.” Even though I (still) do not appreciate Arcimboldo’s paintings aesthetically, I very much enjoy the impulse for reflecting on how and why art can make us feel a certain way.

Thank you!

Sassy editing! Love it!😊

damn talk about speedy getting into my reccomended this deserves a lot more recognition

Dear Art Deco, your videos are sooooo entertaining and thoughtfully made (I could watch them all day), but that jump scare at 6:49 scared the heck out of me 😅

I recently started a new cross stitch project, of Arcimboldo’s The Librarian. It’ll take me a year or more to finish, but I can put it above one of my bookshelves.

Thank you! I think I just found my favorite classical painter.

Your videos are such quality content. I’ve been binging them.

I really like your videos , so much nice information!! Thanks!

That’s what I call being “down to earth”

These are like my favorite vids right now LOL the laser eyes was one of the best things ever HAHAHAHA

Ive never seen these paintings before they’re very unique and interesting to look at. Also enjoyed your editing

Another SUPERB video, Art Deco. Thank you. European Royal Courts now promote sobriety. Formerly that was very much not the case - you rightly show a jester. Laughter was sought and promoted as in the so-called Macaronic poetry of Arcimboldo's linguistic predecessor of the previous century. Arcimboldo's food portraits were praised highly by his contemporaries as attested in letters and inventories of palace collections. How we view them now bears little if no relation to how they were originally received. You wisely provide the context and correct perspective and are to be congratulated. Thank you.

I love your videos they’re so interesting ty for making me learn and have a new interest

Bravo! Another great video! 💙💚🤎💛❤💜🧡💗💚

I'm new to your channel. I love it. And personally I love these pictures. I've always loved pictures and paintings that drew me in, into pictures that have so much detail and so much to see, so much more than you see at first glance. And I also love art that's a little dark. Such as Hieronymus Bosch. They are totally different in what they are trying to express and yet I like them both for the all that detail and other artists like them. It's not for everyone. But I like it. Thank you

Honestly your videos could be three times as long and I'd still watch them!

I love your videos.way of explanation is amazing.

I realy appreciate this videos

I found your channel recently and love the content! It’s the perfect balance of humor and education lol

I'm jealous of such talent, I have none although I've tried. The paintings are amazing.

I love love your videos!! Please do more of these!❤️ Its amazing! It's informative! it's funny👍😁 it's not boring! OMG! Please do more! Just keep doing it!!

Discovered his work in the Louvre! 😍

You're so frivolously discussing """_ART_""". It's great!

My mom being the foodie she was decided to get a replica of this painting back in 2006, proudly hung in our dining room, very fascinating painting. Rip mom ❤️

WOOOO I’ve seen the Four Seasons in person! My dad was/is enamored with them. Certainly one of the most memorable pieces I saw at The Louvre

The museeum i work at is going to have a activity for kids next weekend where they can create their own heads from vegetables and fruits, I think I have gotten some of the curators to watch your videos and we have talked about some of the paintings in your videos. I really like your style of art videos. Got me interested in art again and made me visit the national gallery in stockholm twice. Huge thanks and respect from sweden.

I think the last ones says "I'm old in face but fruitful in mind."

I've been an Arts teacher for the last 10 years, and the set of Four Seasons paintings is one I always use in my Earl Childhood classes. Toddlers love it, and the older kids always say they find "these people" "very ugly". And they are amazed by the intrincate puzzles created by Arcimboldo.

I’ve never seen any of them but I can promise it would only take looking at one to cure me of ever desiring to see more!

The edits on this channel are primo

Will you listen! I am not the fruit face master! Everyone: He is the fruit face master!

Thanks for this I actually forgot this completely that these paintings existed

Newer sub. I REALLY enjoy your videos very much!!!

Thanks!

I saw some of these when I lived in Vienna. They definitely stood out 😁

he's certainly a master of composition!

This is the type of abstract or alternate art I like.

I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE THAT SAW SCARY GHOST PEOPLE IN MY BATHROOM TILE, and when its like the middle of the night its even scarier😭

winter looks like something out of scary stories to tell in the dark

Arcimboldo was the start of legitimate creativity in art.

Babies who recognize and respond to their mother’s and other faces, gets more attention. Everyone is thrilled when their baby beams at them. Seeing faces means better health, survival.

In the winter, the geography of citrus cultivation plays a crucial role in the availability and diversity of citrus. While citrus trees are hardy and can thrive in various climates, certain regions become citrus havens during the winter months.

I would love the entire "4 seasons" set as diamond dot canvases!

3:13 This is why I love your channel 😂

I agree with the contents saying he was ahead of his time. I was always so intrigued by these, I would love to know why he thought of doing this

I've seen the "Spring" painting in my school cafeteria while I'm walking past it or eating in the cafeteria. Mad respect for this guy for his paintings to be featured in a school

0:47 Oh my God those ruffles will only get bigger into the 17th century they are so expensive to maintain and pay someone to keep them clean and dry off

I really liked the last one.

I started to become familiar with this dude back in 1976. I bought an album by Kansas called Masque. Which features one of his works on the cover. You have exceptional content and narration.

I was at a castle (skokloster) just outside Stockholm last week and there it was, that fruit portrait!? In Sweden??? In a random castle??? I didn’t know?!? Was shocked. I just sent there to look at the cute surroundings and didn’t expect to see one of the worlds most iconic paintings 😅

Cool!

Its also as if the animals are like the different shades of paint used to create said faces and images. Idk if that makes sense. Btw i love this channel finally something original on youtube i can tell you have scholastic knowledge of art and have utilized it to not only entertain but educate people who may not have access to the same knowledge. Nb4 someone says the internet exists most people dont know what to look up until they are told about what they can look up

I love the four seasons, I think it's a very interesting piece.

Yeah, skill. I am reminded of something from long ago: Beauty is only skin deep but ugly goes through to the core.

An artist I really like, but that is virtually unknown outside of his country of Argentina, is Candido Lopez. He was a 19th century painter from Argentina, the first years of his career as a painter he would make Still Life paintings, and some portraits of political figures. But that changed during the second half of his life after the Paraguay War, the bloddiest war in the history of South America, began. Candido Lopez decided to join the army, and fought in the war, where an explosion would damage his right hand forever. After the war, he spent some time re-teaching himself to paint using only his left hand, and began a series of paintings portraying the war he had witnessed himself at the front lines. The paintings all show either a battle or the aftermath of one, but all from afar, as if we are looking at a postcard of the war itself, we can't see any of the soldiers faces clearly since they are so far away and tiny, the protagonist of the paintings is the war itself. And it is not portrayed in a glorious or epic way, rather is more like a documentary. My favorite of all of his war painings, of which he managed to complete 52, must be "Después de la Batalla de Curupaytí" (Aftermath of the Battle of Curupayti). In there we see a battlefield right after a battle has been fought. We see dead bodies spread all over the landscape, both of men and of horses, patches of smoke from the ground here and there, soldiers dragging off dead bodies from the battlefield while piling up rifles and swords collected from the dead. Some soldiers are forcing POWs to walk away to be taken to a war prison, while others, the ones that are too injured to get up and walk, are being depicted as being unceremoniously shot right on the spot. It is a very powerful painting even if its so serene, at a time where paintings of war were all about heroism and great men fighting againts all odds, Candido Lopez's painting instead shows us that war is neither noble nor heroic. It is an ugly spectacle where men die left and right, with no honor or heroism to be seen anywhere. Something that we wouldn't see in European art until after the end of World War 1, decades later.

Big fan of Arcimboldo. Way ahead of his time. :)

Ever see the image of the Death Head Moth from The Silence of the Lambs? It is a painting by Salvador Dali of naked people!

I absolutely love the literal “rosy cheeks” lol

I click because I seen the man made of fruits before in a book when I was a kid. And I always thought was a really cool idea.

The Vienna Kunsthistorische Museum has a large collection of his works. I loved them, when I was a kid.

To summarize Arcimboldo: wtf.

1:06 That is art on its own