Roland Barthes, Arcimboldo, 2005

The life of Giuseppe Arcimboldo was as regulated and crowned with success as the posthumous destiny of his works was accidental and censured by oblivion. One of the most loved, flattered and imitated painters of his time, he carried out an honourable career in the service of archbishops and emperors; his paintings, however, underwent the flow of alternating vicissitudes, were largely dispersed and confused in the mass of modest and anonymous imitations. Underestimated as a “curiosity” and relegated to the sub-species of “whims and eccentricities” by the dominant taste, his work was almost ignored by the official artistic literature, or cited only accidentally, often inappropriately.” (Corinna Ferrari)