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| Arcimboldo, Fruit Basket (upsidedown reversible) |
Everyone was given the same problem, but the solutions that resulted were invariably different, often surprisingly. Each problem was presented to the assembled group, but each student worked alone on his / her answer. No one knew what the other would do until the day of the critique, at which time everyone's work was revealed.
The problems were sometimes derivative of certain kinds of imagery, which often as not were indebted to historical styles of art. In one of those problems for example (of which five responses are reproduced below), which I presented to freshmen, I gave a prefatory talk about the portrait paintings of the Italian Mannerist artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-1593), one of which is shown in the reproduction above.
In the Modern era, it was often claimed that Arcimboldo had anticipated the dream-like qualities of Surrealism, since the bulk of his paintings consist of surprising portraits that were made by combining bits and pieces of non-portraits, such as plants, animals, flowers, fish, and so on. Using cut-out fragments of magazine photographs (this predates the use of computers), the students were instructed to devise comparable portraits.
Five of those are shown below. I regret that so many years have passed that I no longer have a record of the names of the students who made these.
In the Modern era, it was often claimed that Arcimboldo had anticipated the dream-like qualities of Surrealism, since the bulk of his paintings consist of surprising portraits that were made by combining bits and pieces of non-portraits, such as plants, animals, flowers, fish, and so on. Using cut-out fragments of magazine photographs (this predates the use of computers), the students were instructed to devise comparable portraits.
Five of those are shown below. I regret that so many years have passed that I no longer have a record of the names of the students who made these.
