I was fascinated by the originality of Giuseppe Arcimboldo ' s paintings . Although this paintre is little known , he deserves to be mentionned , so I will try to sommarise his life in a few lines . He was born in Milan in 1527 and died in 1593 , from a family of painters . He left no writings about himself or his works . On his daeth , the artist ' s legacy was quickly forgoten and many of his works were lost . Nor were they mentioned in the litterature of the 17th and 18th centuries . Nevertheless , his career was an honourable one . In his early years , he worked in the shadow of his father , a craftsman painter at Milan Cathedral . At the time , the construction of this basilica was the most ambitious project in Europe . Early in his career , he produced a series of drawings for stained glass windows in the cathedral . At 23 years , he already holds the title of ‘Master’ . He soon came to the attention of Ferdinand of Bohemia , who commissionned five coats of arms for the cathedral . At 23 , he already holds the title of ‘Master’ . From then on , his reputation began to spreat . In 1562 , he was called to Prague to work for Ferdinand I as the imperial family ' s portraitist . He then radicaly changed direction by creating ‘composite portraits’ . These works allowed him to express himself fully by rejecting the conventional forms of painting and embarking on a unique artistic path . At this time , Italian painting was taking on a very particular form , knewn as ‘Mannerism’ , which Arcimboldo adopted
