What one sees so unambiguously in Arcimboldo's unique compositional cornucopias, however, is his strong leaning towards the more imaginative and fanciful elements of the Mannerist style. Historians have speculated over possible precursors (such as the ceramicist Francesco Urbini) to Arcimboldo's unique style of so-called teste composte ("composite head") painting.The fashion for picture puzzles notwithstanding, the "Arcimboldo palindrome" represented something more like a pictorial metamorphosis and can be read thus as the artistic equivalent of "elite magic" as advocated by his court colleagues, the alchemists. Seen from one angle we have a still life when rotated 180 degrees we discover a typical Arcimboldo composite head. The idea of the reversible image - known subsequently as the "Arcimboldo palindrome" - saw the same image take on a different meaning once it is reversed (a regular palindrome is a word that reads the same frontally and in reverse).Arcimboldo honed his talent for playing tricks on the eye through his fantastical - such as a three-headed dragon costume to be fitted to a horse - and allegoric - drawing on such themes as "grammar," "geometry," "astrology," "music" and "rhetoric" - pageant outfit designs.His portraits, made of composite flora and/or fauna arrangements, have been at the same time likened to symbolic picture puzzles. As the most radical and extravagant exponent of the Mannerist style, Arcimboldo's artwork is remarkable for the way he pushed the theme of the parallel between mankind and the natural world to new limits.
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