Summer

Summer is one of Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s celebrated composite portraits, part of a series of the Four Seasons painted for the Habsburg court. The face is built entirely from the produce of summer — cherries for cheeks, an ear of wheat for a moustache, a cucumber for a nose. The playful surrealism and dazzling technique made Arcimboldo a court favourite and a perpetual inspiration to later artists from the Surrealists onward.