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Chirico (kîr´î-ko´, kê´rê-kô´), Giorgio de
1888-1978
Italian painter whose works are characterized by deep shadow and perspective, barren landscapes, and elements of classical architecture and sculpture.

Chirico, Giorgio de

Chirico, Giorgio de (1888-1978), Italian painter, who founded the school of metaphysical painting. Born in Volos, Greece, he used exaggerated perspective and sharp contrasts of light and shadow to evoke a haunting, ominous dream world. He also painted bizarre, faceless mannequins and juxtaposed wildly unrelated objects in his still lifes, a technique adopted by the surrealists.

 (Apollinaire, 1914) "If this man had some courage he would have tired long ago of that game of making fun of his lost genius." (André Breton,  1928) "Heir of Bücklin and of imaginative painting in general, Chirico sensationally revolutionizes anecdote and also the subject in the manner of and in circumstances proper to the surrealist revolution in the realm of imagination." (Salvador Dali) The pictorial work of Chirico claimed by Surrealism came to a halt in 1918. Since then one owes him for nothing but the publication of an admirable prose work: Hebdomeros (1929).
 
 
 

The Metaphysical Paintings

The term "metaphysical" represented to de Chirico a search for the essential meaning hidden behind the surface of objects.  He believed that objects acquire various meanings when imbued with the memory of their viewer.  If that which de Chirico called the "chain of memories" is broken, the objects acquire a new and disquieting guise, "a ghostly and metaphysical aspect that only a few individuals can see in moments of clairvoyance and metaphysical abstraction. "  The architecture of Turin and Ferrara, with their solemn porticoed streets and wide piazzas was for de Chirico the most appropriate setting for these images - locomotive trains, statues, silhouettes - which are frozen and outside the flow of time.  The depth of perspective in these vistas is often fictitious, and the canvases often contain contradictions that subtly underscore the sensation of estrangement and anguish that fascinated the Surrealists.  De Chirico confined himself to this repertoire between about 1912 and 1919.  Thtroughout his career he returned intermittently to these Metaphysical themes which, while they identify him as a painter for art historians, still do not exhause the range of his oeuvre.

• _The Enigma Of The Oracle_
• _The Disquieting Muse_
• _Nostalgia Of The Infinite_

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