The Metaphysical Art of GIORGIO de CHIRICO

“To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams.” ❀ “I paint what I see with my eyes closed.” Giorgio de Chirico

Giorgio de Chirico was born to Italian parents in Volos, Greece, in 1888 and died in 1978 in Rome, Italy. In his metaphysical style of painting, he sought to evoke the hidden significance in ordinary places and objects of everyday life. He painted enigmatic scenes of empty, dramatically lit cities with piazzas, inhabited by only one or two figures or menacing statues with mysterious shadows. Many of his works featured illogical, strange combinations of everyday objects such as rubber gloves, fruits and maps, and were peopled by faceless mannequins. The mood of these paintings, with their exaggerated perspectives and empty spaces, was often unsettling. As a young artist, de Chirico was inspired by the European Symbolist artists and their use of dream-like imagery. His earliest signature works combined a Symbolist sensibility with his love of the classical antiquities of Greece and Italy and his philosophical musings on the true nature of reality.

In 1911, de Chirico traveled to Paris, France, where he exhibited his work and met a number of influential avant-garde artists and writers, including Pablo Picasso. De Chirico produced many of his most important and influential paintings during his Parisian stay of 1911-15. Though he did not identify himself as a Surrealist, he briefly collaborated with the artists of this circle, showing his work in their group exhibitions in Paris. However, in the 1920s, he began working in a neo-traditional style inspired by Renaissance “old masters” like Raphael and Titian, and he turned against modern art and broke ties with the Surrealists. De Chirico’s later career was inconsistent and occasionally controversial. He worked in a variety of formats from theater design to book illustration to sculpture, but his style was subject to unpredictable changes. After his death he was recognized and praised for his influence on the Surrealists and a later generation of artists, photographers and filmmakers.

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