In the Summer of 1563 which belonged to a series of the Four Seasons, Arcimboldo composes heads for the first time from all kinds of objects, whose selection gives meaning to the allegory. As attested by, among others, a maiolica plate from 1536, this compositional method was certainly not invented by Arcimboldo, but the sophistication and imagination with which the painter applies the themes in the picture-puzzles are a very personal achievement, and the many later copies serve to reveal in their weaknesses and simplifications Arcimboldo's true originality.
The cycle of the seasons is also an allegorical representation of the for ages of life. In correspondence to the Four Seasons was the series created three years later in 1566, the Four Elements. Through a paired arrangement of the qualities in the objects, warm-cold and damp-dry, the elements correspond to the seasons. Thus the warm-dry summer corresponds to fire, the cold-damp winter to water, the warm-moist spring to air and the cold-dry autumn to earth. Thereby, through the arrangement of the heads, turn to the left or to the right, corresponding pairs face each other and form a unit. If desired, the allegories in the two series could be arranged into a paired-grouping in which each head in one series would face its corresponding head in the other, as follows: Spring - Air, Summer - Fire, Autumn - Earth, Winter - Water.