SURREALISM
(1924-1960) IN THE WESTERN VISUAL ARTS
“Mystery and Melancholy of
a Street” (1914) by Giorgio de Chirico is a classic work of Surrealism’s
immediate precursor, de Chirico and Carlo Carrà’s Pittura Metafisica (1911-1920).
De Chirico creates a haunting dreamscape with his characteristic contrivances—visually
extreme perspectives; urban settings empty of human presence or very nearly so;
items either singly or together arranged, situated outside everyday context;
desert environs lit unnaturally in subdued, often creamy hues. Jutting leftward
is the shadow of a hidden figure, as a lone, wispy flag undulates in the
distance and in the foreground an empty horse trailer sits in the shadow of the
flanking structure. The figure playing with a hoop is no child in the cheerful company
of friends but rather a ghostly silhouette.
Encyclopedia
Britannica’s take on Pittura Metafisica:
“Metaphysical
painting, style of painting that flourished mainly between 1911 and 1920 in the
works of the Italian artists Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà. These painters
used representational but incongruous imagery to produce disquieting effects on
the viewer. Their work strongly influenced the Surrealists in the 1920s.
“…Metaphysical
painting originated with de Chirico. In Munich, Germany, where he spent his
formative years, de Chirico was attracted to 19th-century German Romantic
painting and to the works of the philosophers Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich
Nietzsche. The latter’s search for hidden meanings beyond surface appearances
and his descriptions of empty squares surrounded by arcaded buildings in the
Italian city of Turin made a particularly deep impression on de Chirico.
“…The
Metaphysical school proved short-lived; it came to an end about 1920 because of
dissension between de Chirico and Carrà over who had founded the group. After
1919 de Chirico produced weaker images, lacking the mysterious power of his
earlier work, and his painting style eventually sank into an eccentric
Classicism.”
—The
Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, “Metaphysical Painting”
If
you examine de Chirico’s career over the decades, it’s apparent that after setting
forth his original vision, he didn’t develop much beyond it, sinking into what
the Britannica article has described as “an eccentric Classicism.”
To
best appreciate de Chirico, I would say we have to view his entire oeuvre in
one go and without regard to the passage of his long lifetime—he lived until 90.
Doubtlessly, he successfully propounded an original and influential
vision, and he is rightly hailed as one of the progenitors of Surrealism.
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| Mystery and Melancholy of
a Street (1914) by Giorgio de Chirico |
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