Giorgio de Chirico

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) was an Italian painter and sculptor who founded Metaphysical painting. His eerie, dreamlike cityscapes influenced Surrealism.

The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street: A 1914 painting by de Chirico showing a girl rolling a hoop toward a shadowed street and looming wagon. Its abrupt shadows and unseen threat distill the tension of his Metaphysical cityscapes.
Metaphysical painting: An Italian art movement that used enigmatic combinations of objects, architecture, and figures to unsettle ordinary reality. De Chirico founded the movement whose visual language defines his early work.
Athens: The capital of Greece, where de Chirico was born in 1888 to Italian parents. His birthplace connected his family history to the classical antiquity that recurs in his art.
Carlo Carrà: An Italian painter who joined de Chirico in developing Metaphysical painting during the 1910s. Their work and writing helped establish the movement as more than one artist’s private vision.
Surrealism: An artistic and literary movement that sought to release imagination from rational control, often through dreamlike imagery. Surrealists drew on de Chirico’s uncanny juxtapositions and deserted urban spaces.
The Song of Love: A 1914 de Chirico painting pairing a classical sculpture head with a rubber glove and a green ball. The incompatible objects exemplify his unsettling use of unexpected juxtapositions.
Piazza: An open public square in an Italian town or city, commonly surrounded by buildings. His painted piazzas become theatrical stages through long shadows and isolated objects.
Munich: A city in southern Germany that became a major center of art and philosophy around 1900. De Chirico studied art there and encountered German thought that shaped his early outlook.
Guillaume Apollinaire: A French poet and art critic who championed avant-garde artists in early twentieth-century Paris. Apollinaire recognized and promoted de Chirico’s paintings before Surrealism emerged.
René Magritte: A Belgian painter known for precisely rendered images that disrupt ordinary expectations and meanings. Magritte acknowledged the impact of de Chirico’s paintings on his development as an artist.

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