Winter, 1563 Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593)

We create our paintings with museum quality and covering the highest academic standards. Once we get your order, it will be entirely hand-painted with oil on canvas. All the materials we use are the highest level, being totally artist graded painting materials and linen canvas.

We will add 1.6" (4 cm) additional blank canvas all over the painting for stretching.

High quality and detailing in every inch are time consuming. The reproduction of Giuseppe Arcimboldo also needs time to dry in order to be completely ready for shipping, as this is crucial to not be damaged during transportation.
Based on the size, level of detail and complexity we need 8-9 weeks to complete the process.

In case the delivery date needs to be extended in time, or we are overloaded with requests, there will be an email sent to you sharing the new timelines of production and delivery.

TOPofART wants to remind you to keep patient, in order to get you the highest quality, being our mission to fulfill your expectations.

We not stretch and frame our oil paintings due to several reasons:
Painting reproduction is a high quality expensive product, which we cannot risk to damage by sending it being stretched.
Also, there are postal restrictions, regarding the size of the shipment.
Additionally, due to the dimensions of the stretched canvas, the shipment price may exceed the price of the product itself.

You can stretch and frame your painting in your local frame-shop.

Once the painting Winter is ready and dry, it will be shipped to your delivery address. The canvas will be rolled-up in a secure postal tube.

We offer free shipping as well as paid express transportation services.

After adding your artwork to the shopping cart, you will be able to check the delivery price using the Estimate Shipping and Tax tool.

The paintings we create are only of museum quality. Our academy graduated artists will never allow a compromise in the quality and detail of the ordered painting. TOPofART do not work, and will never allow ourselves to work with low quality studios from the Far East. We are based in Europe, and quality is our highest priority.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo's "Winter," painted in 1563, feels like a surreal puzzle of nature and decay mashed together with a sense of macabre humor. This is not your cozy fireplace winter, but a harsh, biting one - the kind that strips trees of their leaves and leaves them gnarled and twisted. The figure’s face is a contorted amalgamation of knotted tree bark, cracked and uneven, with a texture that’s almost painful to look at. It's as if Arcimboldo was saying, "This is what winter does to you - it turns you into something brittle, almost monstrous."

The “hair” is a mess of ivy and twigs, barely clinging to life, giving the head a crown-like structure - but it’s a crown that hints more at survival than royalty. The skin, if you can call it that, is a patchwork of grayish, blue-toned wood, almost corpse-like in its pallor. It's clear that Arcimboldo wasn’t going for warmth in the color palette here. Instead, he sticks to earthy tones - browns, dull greens, and ghostly whites - all of which contribute to the unsettling coldness of the piece.

Composition-wise, it’s a tightly packed portrait. The bust emerges from a woven mat that wraps around the figure like an oversized scarf - a sharp contrast to the rough, organic texture of the head. And then there’s that lemon hanging off to the side, absurdly vibrant in comparison to everything else. It's a splash of color amidst all this drabness, like an accidental sign of life. This juxtaposition makes the whole image even more peculiar.

Arcimboldo’s technique? Flawless. He seamlessly blends the organic elements into a grotesque but coherent figure, balancing the ridiculous with the realistic. It’s a portrait that both fascinates and repels, much like winter itself.