For my first Cool After School program after my holiday break, I featured the book, Hello, Fruit Face! The Paintings of Arcimboldo, by Claudia Strand.
The kids really liked the grotesque portraits composed of fruits, vegetables, and other materials. I showed them Arcimboldo’s portrait of a librarian at the court of Rudolf II…
…and of course I could not resist showing off the edible version of The Statue of Liberty that I made quite a long time ago.
For the class, I had printed out images of various vegetables, and the kids (and at least one of the parents!) had a blast composing their grotesque self-portraits.
They came up with highly individual ideas, including pop-up elements.
I was impressed with the results!
I discovered that an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art had just closed a few days before this class. Arcimboldo, 1526–1593: Nature and Fantasy will next be on view at the Palazzo Reale, Milan, January 27–May 8, 2011. It features a monumental sculpture by Philip Haas of Arcimboldo’s portrait, Winter.
You can get a better idea of the scale of this monumental sculpture from this video:
For more about Arcimboldo, watch this short video from Smithsonian Magazine:
