The Cook – Still Life Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526-1593)

Description of the painting "The Cook" by Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Portrait or still life? A roast or a face? "The Cook" is one of Arcimboldo’s most successful and entertaining visual illusions. The court portraitist of Emperor Maximilian portrayed the cook, by which he once again earned the praise of the high person.

The anthropomorphic image is based on the technique of pareidolia (creating illusions from images of other real objects). On an open silver tray are a rabbit, a turkey, and a pig roasted whole. A truly imperial treat. When you turn the canvas, they turn into rather grim human facial features, and the plate into an element of knight’s armor. A little imagination and the green leaves become an elegant feather. Such experiments were not uncommon during the Renaissance. Giuseppe Arcimboldo was an acknowledged master of them during his lifetime.

"Being determines consciousness" - the sixteenth-century artist tried to express this tenet long before Hegel and Marx in the painting "The Cook". But he expressed it not with a pen, but with a brush. The second "inverted" image unequivocally alludes the viewer to the dualism of existence (its two beginnings). Rene Descartes came close to understanding this philosophical category a century later. Interpreting Arcimboldo’s paintings is difficult because the viewer is separated from the Renaissance by several hundred years.

Some researchers consider the work of the artist as the precursor of Surrealism. His imitators can be found even in the 21st century. The painting is perfectly preserved to this day. It can be seen in the National Museum of Sweden in Stockholm.