Sculptures provide a chance to revel in nature’s abundance

The 16th century Italian Renaissance artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo created some of the strangest oil paintings of his day, by even jaded contemporary standards. Arcimboldo’s botanical portraits turned peaches, cabbages, wheat and a bounty of other natural objects into eerie portraits of people sporting noses, ears, eyebrows and lips crafted from fruits and vegetables.

Modern-day audiences can experience the singular surreality of Arcimboldo’s works through a fresh lens in “The Four Seasons” at the Atlanta Botanical Garden through October.

Filmmaker-artist Philip Haas has revisited Arcimboldo’s paintings in new form with four towering painted fiberglass sculptures that translate Arcimboldo’s paintings into three dimensions. In the process, Haas’s sculptures add an element of comic surprise due to the scale (over 15 feet tall) and outlandishness of these portraits, which symbolically dwarf the viewer with the sheer majesty and profundity of nature.

“Spring,” “Summer,” “Autumn” and “Winter” take a cue from Arcimboldo in transforming elements of the natural world into human form. “Spring” is a feast of blooms bursting into the constituent parts of a man’s face and garb. His cheeks are rose blossoms, petals dangle from tulip earlobes and a coat and collar are formed from green foliage and daisies. As if on cue, a neighboring Japanese apricot tree drops its fruit at the foot of the sculpture, a kind of serendipitous exclamation point to Haas’ verdant display.

In “Summer,” edible abundance predominates: Pea pods form the man’s smile, a gourd the nose and onions the eyelids while a coat of wheat underlines this lush vegetative splendor.

By “Autumn” the bright colors of blooms and succulent ripeness have given way to a more mellow color palette of grapes and apples and a sense of the season’s final harvest.

“Winter” is a study in the landscape’s visual paucity: The human figure wears a crown of twisted vines and his visage is the knotty, gnarled grey of a tree trunk absent of foliage.

“The Four Seasons” celebrates the temporal rhythms of the natural world as spring’s showy, gaudy exuberance gives way to the withered, barren carcass of winter. Because they are portraits, the works also convey a comparable human evolution, from fresh and blooming, to aged and sapped.

“The Four Seasons” sculptures are placed in an orderly row facing the garden’s Great Lawn in seasonal progression, which perhaps lessens their impact slightly. Other venues have chosen to site the pieces emerging from green lawn or from within boxwood hedges, which tends to give the sculptures the look of something growing out of the earth.

On many occasions, from a display of glass artist Dale Chihuly’s work, to an exhibition of British artist Henry Moore’s sculptures, the Atlanta Botanical Garden has proved an apt and compelling venue to display art works. Botanical gardens across the country such as the New York Botanical Gardens, which also has displayed Haas’ works, have recognized the inherent drama in setting artwork against nature rather than in the usual museum or gallery context.

The same element of surprise that occasions Haas’ translation of oil paintings into enormous sculptures happens when the usual survey of plants and flowers is interrupted by the unexpected presence of these surreal, large-scale sculptures. Something about that juxtaposition of the most unmannered and naturalistic of landscapes juxtaposed with feats of human invention creates the welcome, pleasant contrast of experiencing “The Four Seasons.”

The works in “The Four Seasons” are delightful, imaginative and inspire instantaneous responses from visitors, especially children, who shouted out their reactions to the works — “creepy!” “cool!” — with glee, suggesting that this garden context also allows visitors to drop their preconceptions and reservations about what to expect of art and just revel in its effects.