Fantasy Art
Giorgio de Chirico
1888-1978
de Chirico
• Major Italian painter, who founded the
metaphysical school. He was born in
Volos, Greece, the son of an Italian
engineer. He studied art in Athens and
in Munich, where he was strongly
influenced by the allegorical works of
the 19th-century Swiss painter Arnold
Böcklin.
de Chirico
• From 1924 to 1930 de Chirico gave
enormous impetus to the surrealist
movement and influenced such
surrealists as Yves Tanguy and
Salvador Dalí. By the mid-1930s he had
turned to an outworn academic style
and chose to become a fashionable
portraitist.
de Chirico
• As an army conscript in Ferrara in 1915
de Chirico met the futurist painter Carlo
Carrà; together they founded the
magazine Pittura Metafisica in 1920.
From 1915 to 1925 de Chirico painted
bizarre, faceless mannequins and
juxtaposed wildly unrelated objects in
his still lifes, a technique adopted by
the surrealists.
de Chirico
• In Turin and Florence and in Paris,
where he settled in 1911, he painted
deserted cityscapes, such as Enigma of
an Autumn Night (1910) and Mystery
and Melancholy of a Street (1914).
These early metaphysical works,
through sharp contrasts of light and
shadow and exaggerated perspective,
evoke a haunting, ominous dream
world.
Melancholy and Mystery of a Street
1914
The Song of Love 1914
The Song of Love
• The Song of Love (also known as Le chant d'amour or
Love Song; 1914) is a painting by the Italian
metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico. It is one of the
most famous works by de Chirico and an early example
of the surrealist style, though it was painted ten years
before the movement was “founded” by André Breton in
1924.
• It depicts an outdoor architectural setting similar to other
works by de Chirico at this time. This time however, the
main focus is a small wall on which is mounted a Greek
sculpted head and a surgeons glove. Below it is a green
ball. On the horizon is the outline of a locomotive, an
image that recurs several times during this period of de
Chirico’s career.
Metaphysical Art
• Metaphysical art (Italian: Pittura metafisica) is
the name of an Italian art movement, created by
Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà. Their
dream-like paintings of squares typical of
idealized Italian cities, as well as apparently
casual juxtapositions of objects, represented a
visionary world which engaged most
immediately with the unconscious mind, beyond
physical reality, hence the name. The
metaphysical movement provided significant
impetus for the development of Dada and
Surrealism.
de Chirico
• Carrà had been among the leading painters of
Futurism. De Chirico had been working in Paris,
admired by Apollinaire and avant-garde artists
as a painter of mysterious urban scenes and still
lifes.The two painters already knew of each
other and formed an immediate alliance, further
encouraged by the poetry of Alberto Savinio, de
Chirico's younger brother. Aside from De Chirico
and Carrà, other painters associated with
metaphysical art include Savinio, Giorgio
Morandi and Filippo De Pisis.
The Disquieting Muses 1916
The Disquieting Muses
• The Disquieting Muses (in Italian: Le Muse inquietanti, 1916) is a
painting by the Italian metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico. It is
one of the most famous works of the Italian painter and of
metaphysical art.
• The painting was finished in 1916, during World War I, when De
Chirico was in Ferrara. The city, considered by him the "perfect
metaphysical city", offered several hints to his inspiration, including
the Castello Estense which appears in the background of the
painting. Other typical elements of De Chirico art of the time are
present in the work: the dummies, the empty urban spaces, with a
square covered by wooden plates to resemble a stage, a factory
with high chimneys, all set within a timeless frame.
• The Muses are "disquieting" for, in De Chirico's ideals, they had to
path the way to overcome appearances and made the observers
dialogue with unknown. This painting would later become the
inspiration for Sylvia Plath's poem "The Disquieting Muses".
Muses
• The Muses (Ancient Greek) perhaps from the o-grade of
the Proto-Indo-European root *men- "think") in Greek
mythology, poetry, and literature are the goddesses or
spirits who inspire the creation of literature and the arts.
They were considered the source of the knowledge,
related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that
was contained in poetic lyrics and myths. Originally said
to be three in number, by the Classical times of the 400s
BC, their number had grown and become set at nine
goddesses who embody the arts and inspire the creation
process with their graces through remembered and
improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music,
and dance.
The Poet and His Muse
1922
Le Vaticinateur" (1915)
“Metaphysical Interior with Biscuits”
Hector et
Andromache
La Commedia e La Tragedia
Artwork Evaluation Questions
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What do you think the artist was trying to say?
How did the artist use the materials to express idea?
Describe the cultural or historical influence in this work.
What connections can you make to specific cultures?
What does the artwork symbolize or represent?
Discuss the expressive qualities of the artwork?
Do you like or dislike the artwork---why?
Do the elements of art play a significant role in the
artwork? How and why?
• What is the focal point of the artwork?---why do you think
the artist was trying to emphasize this?