Because of my admiration of Arcimboldo, a 16th century painter, I wanted to spread the joy of his modernist concepts to anyone willing to participate in this project. Arcimboldo (I've mentioned this artist before) beautifully arranged fruits and vegetables ( and even pots and pans) in a collage fashion that described an individual's portraiture. Delicately and classically painted, these objects represented all the facial features, clothing, and even the skin tone of the artist's subjects. Humorous as these portraits were, Arcimboldo was a serious, highly inventive artist. While his playfulness amused the Viennese courts (mid 16th century), he should have been acclaimed as one of the first modernist painters well before the 20th century decreed that there was a Modern Art movement.
This remarkable artist's transformative vision suggests to me that an examination of the mysterious relationship between man as an element in nature and man as a metaphysical entity can never be fully resolved.
