Giorgio de Chirico. L’Angoisse du départ. 1914
pre-Surrealism, Metaphysical art
“Psychologically speaking, to discover something mysterious in objects is a symptom of cerebral abnormality related to certain kinds of insanity.” Giorgio de Chirico quote
What I like most about De Chirico is the essence of silence envoked in each of his early empty city street paintings. Silence and Emptiness….
Sharon
Giorgio de Chirico Delights of the Poet, 1913
“Mystery” is the most familiar word of De Chirico. He wrote the following: “there is much more mystery in the shadow of a man walking on a sunny day, than in all religions of the world”.
Giorgio de Chirico. The Enigma of the Hour. 1911
Metaphysical art sprang from the urge to explore the imagined inner life of familiar objects when represented out of their explanatory contexts: their solidity, their separateness in the space allotted to them, the secret dialogue that may take place between them.
Giorgio de Chirico. Mystery and Melancholy of a Street 1914.
De Chirico was a pre-Surrealist painter who started a movement called Metaphysical art
His 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.
