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Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978), the

greatest Italian painter of our time, is also
one of the most elusive figures of modern
art. Recognized as a forerunner of several

important twentieth-century movements

most notably Surrealism he suddenly,
not halfway through his long career,
turned his back on his years of modernist
experimentation and returned to classicism.
Born Greece to Italian parents, de
in
Chirico was schooled in the major art
centers of Europe. He learned drawing in
Athens as a child and was forever
influenced by his classical training. In
Munich he discovered the German
Romantic painters, tne pliilosophical
writings of ^ ot zsche and Schopenhauer, as
T'

well as the emt jing science of psycho-

analysis. De Chirico moved to Paris in
191 1, where his work inspired the future
Dadaists and Surrealists, who responded to
his haunted vision and enigmatic juxta-
positions. In Italy, from 1915 to 1919, he
brought together his explorations of the i2
5 ft
previous years in what he called his
"metaphysical" paintings disturbing, ZjCO
dreamlike canvases that merged reality and z >
ss a
unreality.
But in 1920, after years of experimenta-
tion, de Chirico abandoned his metaphysical
work and returned to a conservative,
academic style. This illustrated survey, with
more than sixty full color reproductions of
his most important paintings, re-examines
the work of this visionary artist.

77 illustrations, including 65 plates

in full color

L
 r
r if

^.^tCb;-tico
Great Modern Masters
De Chirico

General Editor: Jose Maria Faerna

Translated from the Spanish by Diane Cobos

CAMEO/ABRAMS
HARRY N. ABRAMS, INC., PUBLISHERS
 Self-Port rail. 1920. < HI on canvas,
19'/g 15'. I 'I'.).; 39 'I nit).

Staatsgalerie, Modemer Kunst, Munich.

'J
De Chirico and Metaphysical Painting
Regarded by many as the greatest Italian painter of our time, Giorgio
de Chirico was a forerunner of several important modern art move-
ments. He founded the Metaphysical school of painting; he signed the
Dadaist Manifesto; he exhibited with the Surrealists in their first show in

Paris and yet ultimately de Chirico stood on his own. An artist with a
singular vision that defied the artistic circles of his time, he was, without
a doubt, a most elusive figure in the art world. The direction of his work
at times coincided with the dominant trends of the contemporary art
scene. At others, however, it veered away in an anti-Modernist and even
polemic manner. The artist's extensive oeuvre he lived until he was
ninety is often contradictory. Yet he was a crucial player in the forma-
tive years of modern art.

The Uncertainty of the Poet, 1913. Oil on

The Revelation canvas, 41Vb x 37" (105.4 x 94 cm).
The Trustees of the Tate Gallery, London.
Like many of his contemporaries, de Chirico sought a departure from the A work representative of the painter's
traditional way of looking at the object world through painting. "To concerns during his Metaphysical period.

denude art of everything that is common and generally accepted," he

Self-Portrait, 1948.
once wrote of the role of painting; ". . . to liberate it once and for all from Oil on canvas,

anthropomorphism. "
This rejection of painting as a system of representa- 15 SA x 11W
(40 x 30 an).
tion led him Munich to Symbolism, but it
in the early years of his career in
Private collection.
took its definitive form some time later in Italy. As thoughtful a writer as De Chirico's

he was a painter, de Chirico later described this formative moment: It was fascination with
his own image is
a simny autumn afternoon in 1910, in Florence's Piazza Santa Croce. The
demonstrated by
painter was recovering from a debilitating intestinal illness: "The whole the numerous
world around me, including the marble of the buildings and fountains, works in which he
portrayed himself,
seemed to me to be convalescing." In the square was a sculpture of the often quite
great Italian poet Dante; "the autumn sun, strong and warm, brightened theatrically in

the statue and the facade of the church. I then had the strange impression costume.

of looking at those things for the first time." The setting was familiar an
Italian square
but by seeing it through his altered state of mind at the
time, he had transformed the familiar.
This revelation produced Tlie Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon (pri-
vate collection), exhibited in Paris in 1912, and a series of deserted,
frozen cityscapes, populated with mysterious arcades in perspective,
elongated shadows, mannequins, towers, and chimneys. All appeared
transfigured and vaguely menacing, as if the objects and places had been
divested of their comfortable familiarity to acquire a strange and spectral
life. With the juxtaposition of those plazas and arcades, Louis Aragon
astutely noted, "it would be possible to map out the plan of an entire city."

De Chirico called this moment of revelation and the work derived from
an enigma. The significance of the event was to be explored over and
it

over again during the following years in his "Metaphysical" paintings.

Surrealism The Duo (detail), 1915. Oil on canvas,

32'A x 23'/;" (81.9 x 59 cm). The.
It seems it was the poet Guillaume Apollinaire who first described these Museum of Modern Art, New York, -fames
paintings as "Metaphysical," a title which would name a group of artists Thrall Soby Bequest.
 formed around the art journal Valori Plastici in 1918. Their works
attracted a veritable cult following among the Surrealists, particularly
surrounding de Chirico, whose fantasy world so inspired them. Already
an established painter by then, de Chirico joined Pablo Picasso in sup-
porting the fledgling group by taking part in their first group exhibition in
1925.The relationship of the Surrealists and de Chirico was very intense
between 1924 and 1928, although their basic approaches were notably
different. This, in fact, was more of a determining
factor in their eventual
split than the general incomprehension displayed toward de Chirico's
new direction during the 1920s. De Chirico never painted dreams nor did
he exactly attempt to express the world of the unconscious in his paint-
ings. It is certain that he aimed to get closer "to the dreams and openness

of the spirits of children," in order to strip objects of their burden of

meaning. It is often said that de Chirico painted phantom cities, when
what he really did was reduce the spaces and objects that he painted to
the condition of phantoms. It is this detachment that converts his images
into disturbing, even sinister omens: breaking up the relationship of
The Peasant Woman, 1925. Oil on canvas,
33 x 263A"(84 x 68 cm). Private
meaning among objects.
collection, Rome. After 1919, de Chirico
adopted a new language of academic
realism. Discovering Classical Painting

De Chirico received the second revelation of his career in 1919, while

standing before a painting by Titian in the Borghese Galleria in Rome. The
artist related how he stopped seeing the work of art as "painted images,"
that is, how he learned to see the materiality of the painting itself, and
how that universe of heroes, saints, and important figures from the past
suddenly took on a life of its own, independent of the canvas.
All at once the legacy of the great master painters became a phantasm,
like the mannequins and objects that inhabited the ghostly cityscapes
of his Metaphysical period. He translated this discovery into paintings
Still Life, 1929. Oil on canvas,
28 JA x 39W(73 X 101 cm). Galleria executed in the classical style of Raphael, Antoine Watteau, and Eugene
Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Delacroix; but de Chirico also explored it through the reworking and
Contemporanea, Rome.
in the old masters
A renewed interest
was accompanied by
even exact reproduction of his own Metaphysical paintings and, finally,

great attention to the artist's craft.

through a merging both of academic techniques with modern themes and
modern techniques with academic themes.

A Metaphysical Continuum
This change of direction in de Chirico's painting was related, in part, to

a return to the classical order led by such painters as Andre Derain and
Pablo Picasso in the 1920s. For de Chirico, however, it was a much more
complex operation that ultimately demonstrated a coherence underlying
all of his works. The Surrealists and the vanguard establishment did not
understand it as such, condemning his rediscovery of classicism as reac-
tionary. The reverberations of that attack have still not entirely died down,
despite revisionist theories of highly regarded Post-Modernists in the last
ten years.What is certain is that the mythological world of the classical
painters was as valuable to de Chirico's art as the disturbing fantasies of
the second decade of this century. De Chirico always aspired to an art
Self-Portrait in the Nude, 1942 or 1945 Oil form dissociated from representational logic, out there where "neither the
on canvas, 23% x I9 s/a"(60.5 x 50cm). murmur of the streams, the song of birds, nor the whispers of the leaves
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna c
Contemporanea, Rome. Gill
can distract you." Throughout his long career the painter spoke with dif-
<\i Isabella
Pakszwet '/<- ' Itirico ferent voices. He entered and left different spheres with freedom; but in

some sense, the Metaphysical realm was the domain of all of his paintings.

6
Giorgio de Chirico / 1888-1978
Although his parents were Italian, Giorgio de Chirico was born in the

Greek town of Volos in 1888. His early years were divided between
Volos and Athens. His younger brother, Andrea, who also became an
important painter known by the pseudonym Alberto Savinio, was born in
Athens The de Chiricos were a cultured family. Giorgio's father, a
in 1891.

railroad engineer of Sicilian descent and his mother, from a noble Genoan
family, never opposed the artistic inclinations of their sons, but instead

encouraged them.

The Shadow of His Father

Giorgio showed a preference early on for painting; he had private draw-

ing lessons and then attended art classes at the Polytechnic Institute of

Athens in 1899. Four years later he began working in the studio of the

Greek portraitist Jacobidis, where he probably executed his first paint-

ings, although no record of them remains. His familiarity with the ruins of
ancient Greece played a considerable role in the configuration of his pic-
torial universe as did the death of his father in 1905, when the artist was
only sixteen. Many critics have linked the detachment and anguish in his

pictorial spaces to his father's death and de Chirico himself later wrote in De Chirico had an extraordinarily long
career; from his early years in Athens at
his Memoirs: "I struggle in vain against the man with enormously kind yet
the Polytechnic Institute at the beginning
suspicious eyes, who frees himself sweetly my embrace, smiling,
from of this century until well into the 1970s, he
hardly lifting his arms. My father appeared thus in my dreams. ..." never stopped painting.

Portrait of Isa in a Black Dress, 1935. Oil on

A Background in Philosophy
39% x 31%" (100 x 80.5 cm).
canvas,
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e
After his father's death, Giorgio, his brother, Andrea, and their mother
Contemporanea, Rome. Gift of Isabella
visited Italy. They stayed briefly in Florence, Venice, and Milan, and then Pakszwer de Chirico. In Paris in 1930
moved Germany
to to continue the boys' artistic training. The family de Chirico met the woman who would be
his second wife, Isabella Pakszwer, a
remained in Munich for four years, soaking up the intense artistic atmo-
Russian immigrant.
sphere of one of the principal centers of European culture. The Swiss
Romantic painter Arnold Bocklin greatly inspired the young artist and his
presence can clearly be noted in de Chirico's early works. Although the
Munich art scene provided much fodder for a young artist, de Chirico was
most affected by the literature of the times, primarily the German philoso-
phers such as Arthur Schopenhauer and, above all, Friedrich Nietzsche.
This distinctive grounding was markedly different from that received by
most other young French and Italian artists of the period, whose lessons
came largely from the poetic traditions of Romanticism Charles Baude-
laire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stephane Mallarme. This difference helps to
explain the singularity of de Chirico's work, which his contemporaries
did not always understand. It also provides a clue to his method of paint-
ing, which was first intellectual and then pictorial.

De Chirico returned briefly to Italy: Milan, Florence, and Turin where

Nietzsche had lived. Although only a year, this short tour forever left its

imprint on his work. It was here that his Metaphysical painting took form
The piazzas of these cities, Renaissance
after a "revelation" in Florence.
facades, and the light and shadows of an Italian autumn marked the end
of his Romantic Bocklin-influenced body of work.
In the summer of 1911 de Chirico and his mother joined Andrea in
 Paris. Shortly afterward Giorgio began painting his monolithic Tower and
Enigma series, in which the disquieting and frozen scenery of his "Meta-
physical" paintings was already present. These paintings attracted the
interest of the poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire, the great cham-
pion of Cubism and modem art. Through his mediation, de Chirico exhib-
ited paintings at the Salon
d'Automne of 1912 the first public showing of
his work. Through Apollinaire, he also met the art dealer Paul Guillaume,

who later helped him and organized various exhibitions in Paris for him.

Founding a School of Painting

Diana Asleep in the Woods, 1933. Oil on
The two de Chirico brothers returned to Italy at the beginning of World
canvas,35 s/s x WM" (90.5 x 117cm).
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e
War I to serve in the military. Giorgio was sent with the army to Ferrara
Contemporanea, Rome. Gift of Isabella which, together with Turin, became the source for the distinctively urban
Pakszwer de Cliirico. T\ie language of
settings of his paintings. The Italian Futurist Carlo Carra also arrived in
academic painting is joined here with
ancient Greek mythology. Ferrara on military duty and the two met there in 1917. Together with de
Chirico's brother and a few other Italian painters, among them Giorgio
Morandi, de Chirico and Carra founded the art journal Valor i Plastici and
began making their "pittura metafisica." Tlie Great Metaphysician (plate
25) and The Disquieting Muses (plate 52; a 1925 copy of an earlier work)
are typical of de Chirico's work during this time: the characteristic piaz-
zas and arcades are populated with shadows, mannequins, and elements
of classical origin.
In 1919 the artist experienced his classical "revelation" while standing
in a museum before a painting by Titian. This prompted a reconsideration
of academic painting from this point on.
It was his earlier, Metaphysical works, however, which were a beacon
A detail of the artist's studio in Rome, to the Surrealists in the 1920s. De Chirico moved to Paris in 1924, the year
showing a work in the classical style and
small equestrian figures that probably
the group was founded, and for some time maintained close relations
served as models. with Andre Breton and Louis Aragon. He participated in the first Surreal-
ist exhibition in 1925 in Galerie Pierre and his work was rarely missing

from issues of La Revolution Smrealiste. The Surrealists' devotion, how-

ever, was limited to de Chirico's work prior to 1919. This, together with
evident ideological differences with the majority of the group, led to dete-
riorating relations after 1926. Breton launched an attack on de Chirico,
accusing him of substituting "artificial respiration of the painting for the
inspiration of dreams," and de Chirico retaliated, branding the Surrealists
"cretinous and hostile people." The indebtedness of Max Ernst, Rene
Magritte, or Salvador Dali to his work is, nevertheless, unquestionable.

An Independent Artist
From the twenties onward, de Chirico combined incursions into the uni-
verse of Metaphysical paintings at times literally reproducing previous
paintings with impeccable reworkings of the old masters such as
Raphael (plate 27) and his own works. His condemnation by the Sur-
realists has led to much debate in critical circles; his later work has only
recently been vindicated. Regardless of his critical reception, de Chirico
experienced great commercial success after the thirties, thanks in part to
Amazon, 1934. Oil on canvas over his triumph in the United States, where he lived between 1935 and 1938.
cardboard, 23% - I9 s/a"(60 X 50cm).
In 1944 he settled definitively in Rome with Isabella Pakszwer, his second
Private collect ion, Rome.
wile, and continued painting until his death in 1978, freed from the artis-

tic conventions that had once inspired him.

8
Plates

9
 A Symbolist Training
Two cultural influences determined, around 1910, the first steps of Giorgio 1 The Battle of the Lapiths and the
Centaurs, 1909. The mythological battle of
de Chirico as a painter: the years that he lived and studied in Munich (1906-
the Centaurs and Lapitlis has symbolized
1910), and his interest in the art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance since antiquity the battle between
upon his return to the land of his parents. Munich was the center of modern barbarism and civilization. De Chirico
extended this metaphor to the intellectual
artistic experimentation during the first decade of this century. De Chirico's
influences that inspired him during his
earliest paintings show signs of the Symbolist influence and the late Roman- early years in Munich.

ticism of Alfred Kubin and Arnold Bocklin, in keeping with his fascination
for the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. "Schopenhauer and Nietzsche,"
he would later write, "were the first to teach me the deep significance of the
'lack of meaning' of life, and how that meaninglessness can transform itself

into art." This Symbolist proclivity, a prelude to the Metaphysical paintings,

is reflected in the portraits that he made of friends and family as well as in
the mythological scenes directly inspired by Bocklin.

10
2 Dying Centaur, 1909. The thick, paint-

filled brush-strokes here contrast with the

smooth, flat planes that the artist used in
paintings after 1912. Following his
rediscovery of classical painting,
however, de Chirico returned in the
1920s to an approach similar to that

shown here.

11
12
 4, 5 Portrait of the Artist's Mother, 191 1;
Portrait of Mrs. Gartzen, 1913. The
placement of a figure next to a parapet or
stone ivindowsill, beyond which can be
glimpsed the horizon, is a compositional
technique borrowed from Italian
Renaissance art. Tlie uncertain twilight
creates an atmosphere of strange
melancholy that prefigures de Chirico's
Metaphysical cityscapes.

3 Portrait of Andrea de Chirico (Alberto

Savinio), 1910. Although he initially
Studied music, de Chirico's younger
brother. Andrea, also made his name as a
painter. He adopted the pseudonym
Alberto Savinio in 1914, perhaps to avoid
the contusion til I no de Chirico painters.
Giorgio probably painted litis Symbolist
portrait in Milan, upon his return from
Munich in 1910, judging from the
inscription on the lintel ore the window.

13
 The Metaphysical Paintings
The term "metaphysical" represented to de Chirico a search for the essen- 6 The Enigma of the Arrival and the
Afternoon, 1912. The idea of the painting
tial meaning hidden behind the surface of objects. He believed that objects
as an enigma, impossible to resolve, is
acquire various meanings when imbued with the memory of their viewer. If presented in the title of many of the first
that which de Chirico called the "chain of memories" is broken, the objects Metaphysical paintings. This same
approach was adopted fifteen years later by
acquire a new and disquieting guise, "a ghostly and metaphysical aspect
Surrealist painters, such as Salvador Dali.
that only a few individuals can see in moments of clairvoyance and meta-
physical 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, silhou-

ettes which are frozen and outside the flow of time. The depth of perspec-
tive 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. Throughout Ms career he returned
intermittently to these Metaphysical themes which, while they identify him
as a painter for art historians, still do not exhaust the range of his oeuvre.

H
7 The Soothsayer's Recompense, 1913. The shafts of late-
afternoon light imbue the ancient statue with a strange life of its
own. In contrast, the train seems lifeless, eternally frozen, as if it
might never reach its destination, the nearby station.

15
 8,9 The Great Tower, 1 91 3; The Tower, 1913. Towers, circular or square, and
composed of wedding cuke like layers of varying columns arc repealed as a central
theme in several paintings completed during the artist'sfirsl stay in Paris.

Id
10 Gare Montparnasse (The Melancholy of Departure), 1914. The
disturbing and puzzling elements perhaps the principal
attributes of Metaphysics according to de Chirico are achieved
by subtle and deliberate incoherencies in the representation; thus,
the frozen movement of the train is contrasted with the flags flying
in a nonexistent wind, or the impossible ascending perspective of
the yellow ramp. The bunch of bananas, which is repeated in other
paintings of the same period, introduces an exotic element
uncontaminated nature amidst a ghostly ciiyscape.

17
18
1 1 The Evil Genius of a King, 1914 -15.
The floor tilts upward, as if shaken by an
earthquake; forms a ramp upon which
il

the objects slide downward, stopped only

by their own transverse shadows.

12 The Mystery and Melancholy of a

Street. 1914. "/;/ Turin, everything is an
apparition, all the nostalgia for the
infinite is revealed to us behind the
geometric precision if the piazza." wrote
Nietzsche during his travels through the
Italian city. De Chirico, an early reader
of the German philosopher, seems to
illustrate his words with scenes like this.
Hie elongated perspective easts a
melancholy pall over the painting.

13 The Red Tower, 1913. Apollina ire.

who had acquired this painting,
arranged for it to be exhibited in Paris in
the Salon d'Automne. The equestrian
image and Die crenellated tower arc
reminiscent of Dali's Knight of Death,
1935. an example ofde Chirico's
profound influence on the Surrealists.

14 The Enigma of Fatality, 1914. The

skeued scale between the red glove arid
the buildings introduces the idea of the
aid-powerful "hand offate" implicit in the
title. Tlie triangularformat, with the
industrial chimney scrcing as the central
axis, accentuates the constricted sense

of space.

19
 15, 16 The Dream of the Poet, 1914; Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire, 1914. These two
paintings arc in homage to the poet Apollinaire, great champion of the de Chirico
brothers. The dark glasses aver his eyes allude to the mythic blindness of the prophet.
"Wliat I hear, " wrote de Chirico, " has no value, only what I see is alive; and when I
close my eyes, my vision is even more powerful.

20
17 The Child's Brain, 1914. Freudian critics seized on this work as an example of an
infantile fantasy, stemming from de Chirico's close relationship with his mother;
others contend that it reflects a chronic melancholy occasioned by the loss of his father.
Again, the figure, whose ghostly status is evident by the white pallor that he shares
with the columns and with the two busts in the Apotlinaire portraits is unseeing.

21
 18, 19 The Anguish of Departure, 1913-14; The
Philosopher's Conquest, 1914. The objects of
imliislrial cirili-ation the smokestack, the
train are a legacy of Futurism, which
de Chirico reworked, reversing the Futurists'
optimism about progress to a pessimism. Both
paintings illustrate the idea of a journey or
departure toward an unknown destination as a
model of the Metaphysical enigma offate.
The artichokes, like the bananas in Gare
Montparnasse, contrast nature and civilization.
TTds theme was dealt with earlier still in The
Battle of the Lapiths and the Centaurs (plati I)

from his Romantic Bocklin period.

22
20 The Song of Love, 1914. Another testimony to the powerful influence de Chirico
had on the Surrealists; Rene Magritle confessed that after seeing a reproduction of this
painting in 1925, he came to his definitive style of painting. He later paid homage to

the icork in a 1929 painting entitled Memory.

23
 21 The Seer. 1915. Mannequins are the only inhabitants of these desolate
Metaphysical paintings. Often appearing in Dadaist montages, they convey a sense of
estrangement and loss of identity.

22 The Melancholy of Departure, 191(i. The journey, a theme explored by de Chirico

m and train station images, is transformed here into t.lie tracings of an
his trains
itinerary on c mysterious mn/i. The formal, almost Cubist language, demonstrates the
artist's responsiveness to the trends of the artistic vanguard.

24
25
 23

^nography. Some of his most

hermetic woL
'
datefivm this perZ
"* J
objects together.
fm .
'

'

'
-77"
CtMm
*
* st
f
ge objects an dplanes
ofcolm
m ^ing that otherwise link.

26
24 The Greetings of a Distant Friend, 1916. Similar in approach to the previous
painting, de Chirico here juxtaposed different overlapping planes of color,
demonstrating how far his complex language was capable of assi in Haling the
technical contributions of contemporary artists like Matisse and Picasso.

27
 25 The Great Metaphysician, 1917. The background architecture replaces the somber
archways of Turin in one of the most emblematic of the Ferrara paintings. Tlie cent ml
figure, a mixture of mannequin, Cubist assemblage, and urban monument, observes a
deliberately disproportionate sense of scale with respect to its surroundings.

28
26
The Sacred Fish, 1919. Tlie technique a dense and dark use of paint and a taste
for volume announces the imminence of de Chirico's classical turn. The fish on a
pedestal, seen front a distorted perspecl r<; presents an unusual still life
i

or "silent,
nature" as the painter preferred to call it. The fish is a symbol of Christ, but was
perhaps used here by de Chirico in a more ancient context, as an allusion to the

divinatory powers once attributed to readers offish entrails.

29
 A Return to Classicism
After the end of World War I de Chirico abandoned Metaphysical painting 27 The Pregnant Woman (after Raphael), 1920.

Tliis is a reworking of a classical painting with

for a time to enter completely into the world of the old master painters.
only a slightly softer approach than the original.
Although the results of this new body of work were quite different from his
"pittura metafisica," de Chirico's modus operandi was basically the same: 28, 29 Saint George, 1920; Lucretia, 1922. Both
portraits are based on fifteenth-century Italian
he identified all the familiar elements found in the master paintings, but
paintings, perhaps by Antonio del Pollaiuolo or
transformed them with his own peculiar vision. He combined a deceptive Andrea Mantegna. Nevertheless, the chromatic
fidelity to the original models with elements from his Metaphysical reper- range, especially in Lucretia; is not so different
from used in the phantom cities of the
that
toire, taking certain liberties with the treatment of the language and themes
Metaphysical paintings. The glimpse of the
of the old paintings. This return to an academic order resulted in the mar- horizon and the sky striated with clouds are
ginalizing of de Chirico by those who had once most applauded his previ- reminiscent ofde Chirico's earliest portraits.

ous work the Surrealists. He had not yet gone to the extremes of the
direct reworking of old master paintings that he later undertook.

30
31
 30 The Poet's Farewells (Tibullus and Messala), 1923. Beneath the bucolic
composition of an cighlcrnlh-ccnturij landscape lies de Chirico's recurring obsession
with "departure." Here the distant figure on horseback recalls the steaming, frozen
locomotives often years earlier.

32
31 The Shores of Thessaly, 1926. One of the clearest examples of Metaphysical
iconography draped in classicism. Despite its Roman air, the building on the left is a
copy of Turin's arcades; Die chimney's association is obvious. Even the empty pedestal,
as if the man and horse had come to life and abandoned it, corresponds to the same
sort of rhetorical game.

33
 32 Gladiators, 1928.
Tlie position of the
figvrcs and the painting
technique seem to be a
commentary in the
s ixteen th-century
Italian Mannerist mode.
The change of scale
between the two
combatants is
nevertheless a tactic
taken from Metaphysical
painting. Tlie mask on
the gladiator on the
right also recalls the
mannequins ofFerrara.

34
 33

33 The Master's Studio in Paris, c. 1938-34. The reference to

Velazquez's Las Meninas, 1656, is evident here: both canvases play

with the idea of a painting within a painting; both also contain a
clog, a curtain, and a doorway in a darkened background. Tlie
figure seenfrom the back is Isabella, </< < Jiirico's second wife.

35
36
34 The Via Appia, a. 1954. The forlorn backdrop of ruins, taken
from the poetics of eighteenth-century landscape painters like
Hubert Robert, is once again associated here with the theme
of the journey.

35, 36 Rural Scene with Landscape, c. I960; Horsemen with

Horses by the Sea, c. 1960. Wliile these two Arcadian landscapes
are strictly eighteenth century in composition, the technique,
which is slightly nervous and heavily outlined, particularly in the
second painting, reveals a contemporary touch.

37
38
37, 38 Divine Horses of Achilles: Balios and Xanthos, 1963; The
Horses of Apollo, 1974. De Chirico frequently painted horses
facing one another, a metaphor of Good and Evil in classical
painting. De Chirico explored this theme in many forms
throughout his career, beginning with The Battle of the Lapiths and
the Centaurs (plate 1) from his early days, to his later gladiators
in combat.

39
 The Artist's Own Image
A painter approaches the self-portrait as a reflection not only of him- or her- 39 Self-Portrait, 1925. The portraits and
self-portraits were the first indication,
self, but of the craft of painting. De Chirico showed a talent for the genre
including those before 1920, of the
unmatched among his contemporaries. His impassive gaze, receding chin, painter's progress toward a classical

and unmistakable nose are as familiar in his iconography as the man- model. The three-quarter pose, the
windowsill below, and the landscape in the
nequins, classical busts, or deserted avenues. His extensive series of self-
background are all reminiscent of Italian
portraits can be seen as a silent and intermittent manifesto about the Renaissance portraiture.
manner in which de Chirico understood painting throughout his career.
The painting of his studio (plate 33), which bows to the seventeenth-
century Spanish painter Diego Rodriguez de Silva Velazquez's Las Meninas
(which is also itself a painted manifesto about the virtue of painting), and
those canvases in which he appears in old-fashioned pose or costume,
imply an expressive reflection of his attitude toward the pictorial culture of
the great classics.

40
 40

40 Nude Self-Portrait, 1945. While exposing himself to the viewer,

de Chirico also assumed the role of an anonymous, professional
model posing for an academic exercise in portraiture. In the
portraits on the following pages, he is also disguised, but in afar
more theatrical manner.

41
 41 Self-Portrait in Black Costume, 1948. Posing himself before a ruin and dressed in
a seventeenth-century costume, dc Chirico here makes literal his transmutation into a
classical painter. As in so many of these portraits, de Chirico followed the original
historical model in technique, bul imbued it with his own Mannerist commentary.

42
42 Self-Portrait in a Park, 1959. Dressed here in a Flemish costume, the artist was
perhaps paying homage to Peter Paul Rubens or Frans Hals. While the background in
the previous painting was Arcadian, this is a traditional Italian garden. The setting
and the framework fa ithfully mimic the models of the period, except perhaps for the
iron borders that encircle the flower beds, which might well function as an ironic wink.

43
 The Reinvention of Painting

The most discussed facet of de Chirico's classical period is the work done 43 Horseman with Red Cap and Blue
Cape, 1939. The painter combined the
"in the manner of," that is, those canvases in which he literally reworked
horsemen who appear in the piazzas of
paintings of old masters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Titian, Antoine Wat- his Metaphysical paintings with the

teau, and Jean-Honore Fragonard. These works constituted not only a per- techniques and colors of the French
Romantic painters of the first half of the
sonal academic investigation into the techniques of the imitated painters,
nineteenth century like Eugene Delacroix
but also a refined intellectual and rhetorical game. The painter behaved as and Jlieodore G&ricault.
if he were one of the masters himself. As they sometimes reworked themes
from earlier or contemporary paintings, so he reworked their paintings.
When he painted himself in costume, de Chirico was trying on the trappings
of the old masters, introducing into some of his portraits an unmistakable
air of kitsch. The historical vanguard never understood this foray; only
recently have critics begun to revise posterity's harsh criticism of it.

44
44 The Fall of Phaeton (after Rubens), 1954. Like de Chirico's Metaphysical cilies,
which were "ghosts" of cities, these paintings are "ghosts" of their originals
De Chirico took the ample, sensual style of Rubens but distorted it, introducing a
certain distance. The new canvas was thus a definitive de Chirico, rather than a copy
of Rubens.

45
 45, 46 Sleeping Girl (after Watteau), 1947; Portrait of a Man (after

Titian). 1945. The painters whom de Chirico "reinterpreted"

ranged from Raphael, Titian, and Rubens to French Rococo artists.

Through his own painting, de Chirico confronted the history of

painting as one complete tradition.

47, 48 Nymph with Triton (after Rubens),

1960; Mythological Scene, 1960. Using two
Rubens paintings as his models, de Chirico
manipulated them to express better than
ever before how a rupture in the expected
< an bring new meaning to an image.

46
47

47
 49 Old Man's Head (after Fragonard), c. 1964.
When the original paintings selected by de
Chirico had little narrative intensity, as is the

case here, he focused his attention on the

techniques and pictorial modes.

50, 51 Villa Falconieri, 1946; Villa Medici: Small

Temple with Statue, 1945. De Chirico reivorked
two famous views painted by Velazquez on his
second trip
to Italy. Hie small originals are

unusual and elusive interpretations of a garden

and a traditional landscape. Tfiey explore
the apparent order of architecture and the
hidden order in nature, themes also of interest to

de Chirico.

48
49
 Variations on a Theme
De Chirico never ceased to eke out the central mystery of a 52 The Disquieting Muses, 1925. De Chirico
copied himself here, reproducing one of the
theme. Not content with reworking paintings from the
most famous paintings of his Ferrara
annals of art history or posing himself as their master, he period, painted in 1917. Therewas no
began to revise his own paintings from the Metaphysical alteration except a somewhat colder and
more luminous shading here.
period. From the middle of the 1920s on de Chirico began
making new versions of his prewar paintings and also liter- 53 The House within the House, 1924.
ally copying his Metaphysical paintings. He applied the same Magritte was enormously influenced by
de Chirico; this painting explores themes
naturalness to these exercises as a Baroque or Renaissance
such as the conflicting and paradoxical
workshop producing various canvases with the same reli- relationship between the interior and
gious or heroic image. The process became even more com- exterior, which became a focal point in the
work of Magritte.
plicated when his paintings mixed Metaphysical imagery
with techniques that were classical in origin. Outstanding
among these are several post-forties canvases that recall the
mechanisms of metamorphosis and the displacement of
objects from their habitual context, as in the paintings of the
Belgian Surrealist Rene Magritte.

50
51
 54, 55 The Great Automaton,
1925; Italian Square with
Equestrian Statue, 1936. Two
reinterpretations, though not
literal, of the Metaphysical
universe. The first is a new
version of The Great
Metaphysician (191 7; plate 25)
with variations in iconography
and palette; the second is another
work in the Piazza series, one of
de Chirico's favorite themes
during his Metaphysical period.

52
56 Italian Square with Red Tower, 1943. Here de Chirico behaves
with his own paintings as he does with those of the old masters:
reinterpreting the language and iconography with a deceptive
Uteralness. If within the Platonic tradition, the plastic arts
produced only shadows of shadows, then heir it could be said thai
we are dealing ivith the ghost of a previous ghostly vision.

53
 57 Hector and Andromache, c. 1924. A revealing example ofde
Ckirico's eclectic use of the history of painting. He treats an
ancient theme with Metaphysical iconography, converting the
characters into mannequins.

54
58 Hector and Andromache, 1946. A variation of and counterpart
to the previous painting. Hector and Andromache are clearly
shown as Metaphysical mannequins; the illumination and use of
space arc also examples of this style.

55
 59 Metaphysical Interior with Cookies, 1958. A variation of a, painting with the same
theme made at the end of World War I. Tfic silhouettes here are made more simply, and
the shadows, much closer to a trompe l'oeil in the original, are represented and colored
in a more schematic manner.

56
60 The Red Glove, 1958. The principal difference between this and The Enigma of
Fatality (1914; plate 14) is found in the sky: here, it is now a bright daytime sky; in
the earlier painting, it was twilight. Much of the mystery of the original painting is

diluted as a result.

57
 61 The Return of Ulysses, 1968. An example of displacement that
became so characteristic of the paintings ofMagritte.

58
62 Mysterious Baths (Flight to the Sea), 1968. Tiic light, humorous lone of these later
paintings counterbalanced the profound anxiety in the works thai made him famous

during the early decades of the century. This same ironic loucli which can be
seen as a sly debunking of his own legacy characterizes many of dc Chirieo's later
rework ings and newer versions of his Metaphysical paintings.

59
60
63, 64 Metaphysical Interior with Setting Sun, 1971; The Great
Game, 1971. The Piazza series and the Metaphysical canvases in
general were dominated by the greenish light of hot autumn
after-noons. Here de Chirico played with suns and
moons connected by strange cables. The elongated shadows and
threatening masses of those paintings, which had confirmed him
as one of the great modern artists, are now diluted. Like an actor
who rises from the stage after the death of his character, de
Chirico thus proclaims, in a mocking manner, his dominion over
a universe that he created and that belongs only to him.

61
 List of Plates

1 The Battle of the Lapiths and the Centaurs, 1909. Oil on canvas, 19 The Philosopher's Conquest, 1914. Oil on canvas,
29Vs x 44%" (75 x 112 cm). Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e 49% x 39%" (125.7 x 100.3 cm). The AH Institute of Chicago.
Contemporanea, Rome Hie Joseph Winterbotham Collection

2 Dying Centaur, 1909. Oil on canvas, 46% X 28%" 20 The Song of Love, 1914. Oil on canvas, 28% x 23%"
(117 X 73 cm). Assitalia Collection, Rome (73 x 59.1 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Nelson A.
Rockefeller Bequest

3 Portrait of Andrea de Chirico (Alberto Savinio), 1910. Oil on

canvas, 46% x 29W (119 x 75 cm). Staatliche Museen zu 21 The Seer, 1915. Oil on canvas, 35% X 27%"
Berlin, Nationalgalerie (89.6 x 70.1 cm). Tlie Museum of Modern Art, Neiv York.
James Ttirall Soby Bequest
4 Portrait of the Artist's Mother, 1911. Oil on canvas,
33% X 23%" (85.5 x 62 cm). Galleria Nazionale dArte Moderna 22 The Melancholy of Departure, 1916. Oil on canvas,
e Contemporanea, Rome. Gift of Isabella Pakszwer de Chirico 20% x 14%" (51.8 x 36 cm). Tlie Trustees of the Tate Gallery,
London
5 Portrait of Mrs. Gartzen, 1913. Oil on canvas, 28% x 23%'
(73 X 60 cm). Private collection, Rome 23 The Gentle Afternoon, 1916. Oil on canvas, 25% x 23"
(64 X 58.4 cm). Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York
6 The Enigma of the Arrival and the Afternoon, 1912. Oil on
canvas, 27% x 33%" (70 x 86 cm). Private collection, Neiv York
24 The Greetings of a Distant Friend, 1916. Oil on canvas,
19 X 14%" (48.2 X 36.5 cm). Private collection
7 The Soothsayer's Recompense, 1913. Oil on canvas, 53% X 71"
(135.9 x 180.4 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art. Hie Louise and
Walter Arensberg Collection
25 The Great Metaphysician, 1917. Oil on canvas, 41% X 27%"
(104.5 x 69.8 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Tlie Philip L. Goodwin Collection

8 The Great Tower, 1913. Oil on canvas, 48% X 20%"
(123.5 x 52.5 cm). Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen,
26 The Sacred Fish, 1919. Oil on canvas, 29% X 24%"
Dussetdorf
(74.9 x 61.9 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest
9 The Tower, 1913. Oil on canvas, 45>/2 X 17%"
(115.5 X 45 cm). Kunsthaus Zurich, Vereinigung Ziircher
27 The Pregnant Woman (after Raphael), 1920. Oil on wood
Kunstfreunde
panel, 25% X 19%" (65 x 49 cm). Galleria Nazionale dArte
Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome. Gift of Isabella Pakszwer de
10 Gare Montparnasse (The Melancholy of Departure), 1914.
Chirico
Oil on canvas, 55% x 72%" (140 x 184.5 cm). The Museum of
Modem Art, New York. Gift of James Thrall Soby
28 Saint George, 1920. Oil on canvas, 13% x 9%"
(35 x 24 cm). Casella Collection
11 The Evil Genius of a King, 1914-15. Oil on canvas, 24 X 19%"
(61 X 50.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, Ne^v York. Purchase
29 Lucretia, 1922. Oil on canvas, 68% x 30' (174 x 76 cm).
Galleria Nazionale dArte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome.
12 The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street, 1914. Oil on canvas, Gift of Isabella Pakszwer de Chirico
34 'A x 28%" (87 x 71.4 cm). Private collection

30 The Poet's Farewells (Tibullus and Messala), 1923. Tempera on

13 The Red Tower, 1913. Oil on canvas, 29% X 39%" canvas, 25 X 19%" (64 X 49.5 cm). Mario Cambi Collection,
(75.5 x 100 cm). Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. Rome
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York
31 The Shores of Thessaly, 1926. Oil on canvas, 36% X 28%"
14 The Enigma of Fatality, 1914. Oil on canvas, 54% X 37%" (92 X 73 cm). Private collection
(138.1 X 95.5 cm). Emanuel Hoffma n-Stiflung, Kunslmuseum
Basel 32 Gladiators, 1928. Oil on canvas, 63 X 37%" (160 x 95 cm).
Private collection, Rome
15 The Dream of the Poet, 1914. Oil and charcoal on canvas,
35 x 15%" (88.9 x 40 cm). Peggy Guggenheim Collection, 33 The Master's Studio in Paris, c. 1933-34. Oil on canvas,
Venice. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York 21% X 18%" (55.5 X 46.5 cm). Galleria Nazionale dArte
Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome. Gift of Isabella
16 Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire, 1914. Oil on canvas, Pakszwer de Chirico
32% x 25%" (81.5 x 65 cm). Musee National dArl Moderne,
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 34 The Via Appia, c. 1954. Oil on canvas, 19% X 23%"
(50 X 60 cm). Private collection, Rome
17 The Child's Brain, 1914. Oil on canvas, 32 X 25%"
(82 x 64.7cm). Moderna Museet, Stockholm 35 Rural Scene with Landscape, c. 1960. Oil on canvas,
42% X 30" (107 x 76 cm). Private collection, Rome
18 The Anguish of Departure, 1913-14. Oil on canvas,
x 27%" (85 x 69.2 cm). Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, 36 Horsemen with Horses by the Sea, c. 1960. Oil on canvas,
New York. Room oj < oitteinporury Art Fund 30 X 42 Vh" (76 X 107 cm). Private collection, Rome

62
37 Divine Horses of Achilles: Balios and Xanthos, 1963. Oil on 51 Villa Medici: Small Temple with Statue, 1945. Oil on canvas,
canvas, 38 5/s x 34'A" (98 x 87cm). Private collection, Rome 23% X 17%" (60 X 44 cm). Private collection, Rome

38 The Horses of Apollo, 1974. Oil on canvas, 36% X 28-%"

52 The Disquieting Muses, 1925. Oil on canvas, 38% X 26%"
(92.5 X 7.1 cm). Private collection, Rome (97 X 67 cm). Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e
Contemporanea, Rome
39 Self-Portrait, 1925. Oil on cardboanl, 2'/s X IS'/s"

(62.5 X 46 cm). Gallcria Nazionalc d'Arte Moderna c

53 The House within the House, 1924. Oil on canvas,
Contemporanea, Rome
28-% X 20%" (73 X 53 cm). Mario Cambi Collection, Rome
40 Nude Self-Portrait, 1945. Oil on canvas, 22 x 16'//
54 The Great Automaton, 1925. Oil on canvas, 43% X 25%"
(56 X 42 cm). Giorgio and Isa dc Chirico Foundation, Rome.
Gift of Isabella Pakszwer de Chirico
(110 X 65 cm). Museum of Honolulu

41 Self-Portrait in Black Costume, 1948. Oil on canvas, 55 Italian Square with Equestrian Statue, 1936. Oil on canvas,
60 x 35'A" (152.5 x 89.5 cm). Galleria Nazionale d'Arte 23% X 19%" (60 X 50 cm). Private collection, Rome
Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome.
56 Italian Square with Red Tower, 1943. Oil on canvas,
42 Self-Portrait in a Park, 1959. Oil on canvas, 60'A x 38%" 19% X 15%" (50 X 40 cm). Private collection, Rome
(153 X 98 cm). Private collection, Rome
57 Hector and Andromache, c. 1924. Oil on canvas, 38% X 29%"
43 Horseman with Red Cap and Blue Cape, 1939. Oil on paper on
(98.5 X 74.5 cm). Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e
cardboard, 18% X 15" (46 X 38 cm). Galleria Nazionale d'Arte
Contemporanea, Rome
Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome

58 Hector and Andromache, 1946. Oil on canvas, 32'A X 23%"

44 The Fall of Phaeton (after Rubens), 1954. Oil on canvas,
19% X 15 SA" (50 X 40 cm). Private collection, Rome (82 x 60 cm). Private collection, Rome

45 Sleeping Girl (after Watteau), 1947. Oil on canvas, 59 Metaphysical Interior with Cookies, 1958. Oil on canvas,
15% x 19%" (40 x 50 cm). Private collection, Rome 25% x 19%" (65 x 50 cm). Private collection, Rome

46 Portrait of a Man (after Titian), 1945. Oil on cardboard, 60 The Red Glove, 1958. Oil on canvas, 28% x 18%"
12'A X 9" (31 X 23 cm). Private collection, Paris (72 X 48 cm). Private collection, Rome

47 Nymph with Triton (after Rubens), 1960. Oil on canvas, 61 The Return of Ulysses, 1968. Oil on canvas, 23% x 31 >//
15% X 19%" (40 X 50 cm). Private collection, Rome (60 x 80 cm). Private collection, Rome

48 Mythological Scene (after Rubens), 1960. Oil on canvas,

62 Mysterious Baths (Flight to the Sea), 1968. Oil on canvas,
15% X 19%" (40 X 50 cm). Giorgio and Isa de Chirico
31% X 23%" (80 X 60 cm). Private collection, Rome
Foundation, Rome

49 Old Man's Head (after Fragonard), c. 1964. Oil on canvas, 63 Metaphysical Interior with Setting Sun, 1971. Oil on canvas,

19% x 15%" (50 x 40 cm). Private collection, Rome 31% x 23%" (80 X 60 cm). Private collection, Rome

50 Villa Falconieri, 1946. Oil on canvas, 15% X 19%" 64 The Great Game (Italian Square), 1971. Oil on canvas,
(40 x 50 cm). Private collection, Rome 23% X 31W (60 X 80 cm). Private collection, Paris

63
 Series Coordinator, English-language edition: Ellen Rosefsky Cohen
Editor, English-language edition: Sarah Burns
Designer, English-language edition: Judith Michael

Page The Mathematicians, 1917. Pencil on paper, 12 5/h x 8-W

1

(32 X 22 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Gift of Mrs. Stanley B. Resor

ISBN 0-8109-4686-6

Copyright 1995 Ediciones Poligrafa, S.A., and Globus Comunicacion, S.A.

Reproductions copyright Giorgio de Chirico. VEGAP Barcelona 1994
English translation copyright 1995 Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

Published in 1995 by Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated, New York

A Times Mirror Company
All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may
be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher

Printed and bound in Spain by La Poligrafa, S.L.

Pa rets del Valles (Barcelona)
Dep. Leg.: B. 22.008-1995

64
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ABRAMS TITLES IN
THE GREAT MODERN MASTERS SERIES
Each volume includes
approximately 75 colorplates

BACON
CHAGALL
DALI
DE CHIRICO
KOKOSCHKA
MATISSE
MIRO
PICASSO

Other titles are in preparation

Jacket front: The Song of Love, 1914. Oil on canvas,

28% X 23%" (73 X 59.4 cm). The Museum of Modern
Art, New York. Nelson A. Rockefeller Bequest. Photograph
7995 The Museum of Modern AH, New York

Jacket back: (above) A photograph of Giorgio de < 'liirico;

(below) Nude Self-Portrait, 1942. Oil on canvas,

23% X 19'A"(60 x 48.9 cm). Private collection

CAMEO/ABRAMS
Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
100 Fifth Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10011

Printed in Spain
 -

Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978), the greatest

Italian painter of our time, is also one of the
most elusive figures of modern art. Recognized
as a forerunner o
century movemei
h_m
^^^||H
>ortant twentieth-
)tably Surrealism
he suddenly, nc Bj^V^j "ough his long ca-
reer,turned his b H^^U^^B 3ars of modernist
experimentation Ett^Hj^B to classicism.
;

Born in Greece IMIB^BI irents, de Chirico

was schooled in the major art centers of Eu-
rope. He learned drawing in Athens as a child
and was forever influenced by his classical
training. In Munich he discovered the German
Romantic painters, the philosophical writings of
Nietzsche and S>H|H; as well as the
emerging science ^p^^^H alysis. De Chirico
moved to Paris in J 3S^^k ms wor^ Aspired
the future Dadai ]A ^ffHHj realists, who re-
sponded to his 1 Lf^J^J^l )n ^d enigmatic
juxtapositions, hi twi i wk'J 1915 to 1919, he
ought together his explorations of the previ-
0-81()!)-468(i-(i

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