Arcimboldo, Portrait of Rudolf II as Vertumnus, 1591, Kunst-historisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

 

Arcimboldo's paintings are not merely visual games but encourage the viewer to look beyond surface appearances to seek underlying meanings. They are also, in their way, superb nature illustrations.  Indeed, their balance between the natural and the artificial is at play in most of the art produced for Rudolf's court.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hendrick Goltzius, "Sine Cerere et Baccho, Friget Venus"

(without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus would freeze), ca 1600-1603, ink and oil on canvas, Phila-delphia Museum of Art

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This unusual- format work illustrates a maxim from the ancient Roman playwright Terence.  Its combination of sensuality and classical erudition made it a favorite theme of Rudolf and his artists. 

 

Bartolomaeus Spranger, Salmacis and Hermaphrodite, ca 1585, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

 

Salmacis -- her story appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses -- was a nymph who fell in love with the young Hermaphrodite.  He rejected her advances, so she prayed that he would be joined to him forever, and the gods formed the pair into a single unit, both male and female.  While this fits easily into the genre one Rudolf critic called "his prostitute pictures," it also refers to the explorations of alchemy, in which the "hermaphrodite" refers to the conjunction of sulphur and mercury.

 

  

Other (obscure) artists appearing in this talk include Hans von Aachen, Georg Bocksay, Daniel Froschl, Joseph Heintz, Joris Hoefnagel, Hans Hoffmann, Aegidius Sadeler, Roelandt Savery, Pieter Stevens, and Adriaen de Vries.