Biography of Giorgio De Chirico

Metaphysical appearances

10 July 1888
November 20, 1978
Giorgio De Chirico was born on 10 July 1888 in Volos, the capital of Thessaly (Greece). The second son of three brothers was the son of a railway engineer and a Genoese noblewoman. Dead sister Adele still in infancy, the other two sons soon reveal a strong artistic arrangement: George is caught by the Muse of painting while Andrea from that of music, even though the latter, over the years, proved one of the most versatile artists of national history, competing in various fields of art under the pseudonym Savinio. Its some key novels of the twentieth century Italian (as "Hermaphrodito" or "listen to your heart, city", "Narrated men your story" and "home" life "), while his scores can easily be forgotten (remember the Ballets" Perseus ", on the subject of m. Fokine," Ballad of the seasons "," the death of Niobe "and" human life ", all on the subject).
Returning to Giorgio, in recent years, assisted by his father in the passion for art, takes his first lessons in drawing from Greek painter Mavrudis then he enrolled at the Athens Polytechnic University who will attend for a short time (a few years). In 1905 father dies, the tender and ever-present supporter of his inclinations. The wound will not be easy to heal and, indeed, long after the mature painter will often he recalled with emotion the figure and beautiful relationship. Left alone with mother and brother, she moved to Munich to continue his studies. Here is drawn irresistibly from graphic design, very visionary, Alfred Kubin and by the painting of the Symbolist Arnold Boecklin and Max Klinger.
But art does not remain its exclusive field of interest. Opens instead to literature and philosophy that begins to read some basic exponents. Especially fascinated by the thought of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, as well as by that of Weininger (whose work is a real "metaphysics of sex", which aims to lay the groundwork for the advent of a new spirituality); all of these radical importance in the poetry of the artist (the influence of Boecklin and Nietzsche is apparent in the painting "the battle of the Centaurs and the Lapiths '). In 1910, he returned to Italy with his mother accompanying him first to Milan and then to Florence; Andrea takes off for Paris.
In Florence is influenced by Giotto and Tuscan primitive painting, tending towards a design full of prospective plants and buildings shaped like arches. In his artistic pilgrimage also comes to Turin, which affects not only for being the city of the last years of Nietzsche, but also because of the severity of his architectural line. The artistic are the first stylistic coordinates De Chirico Street instead. After a long inner torment, he concludes that art should "create sensations unknown in the past; Strip away the art by the city and accepted ... completely suppress the man as a guide or as a means of expressing symbols, sensations, thoughts, free painting once and for all from anthropomorphism ... see everything, even the man, in his capacity as"thing. In practice, the condensed poster of metaphysical painting, that at this stage, in terms of production, appears just sketched.
Tired of Turin reaches Alberto Savinio in Paris where he received the praise of another "outsider", Guillaume Apollinaire. Thanks to the efforts of his brother was introduced to Pierre Laprade, a member of the jury at the Salon d'Automne, where he exhibited three works: "Enigma of the Oracle, Enigma of an afternoon" and "self portrait". That same year, three other exhibition of his works at the Salon des Indépendants he was noticed by Pablo Picasso that he became friends with Brancusi, Braque, Jacob, fluffy, Léger and Derain. Apollinaire organizes an exhibition of thirty works in the artist's atelier and reviews De Chirico on "L'Intransigeant" by using the term "metaphysics". At the outbreak of World War I, George and Andrea fall into Italy to join the army: Andrea leaves for Greece while Giorgio is hospitalized for nervous disorders at the psychiatric hospital of Ferrara, where he remained until the end of the war. The urban landscape of Ferrara is crucial for definitive imprint metaphysics, in which takes shape his peculiar style characterized by unrealistic scenarios and mysterious, full of a solitude suspended and hallucinatory.
His paintings represent maybe simple and unadorned squares, where materialize subjects living by its own light, extrapolated from the size of bland and utilitarian existence come alive under absolute mental space and memory as signs of the picture is assembled with the same nonsense where you live the reality of the dream: the only one that can justify the reduction of man what , mannequin, a marble statue, in silhouette, devoid of any identity other than the pure appearance metaphysics. In 1916 he painted his famous "Hector and Andromache" and "Le Muse inquietanti" and attends the creative community of Ferrara: acquainted with Filippo De Pisis and began a correspondence with Carrà, who will know during hospitalization. Carrà was fascinated by the poetic world and the artistic themes of De Chirico painted a series of works of chiara metaphysical matrix. The coordinates of this type of painting are also exposed a little later in the magazine "Valori Plastici" directed by Mario Broglio; Meanwhile, André Breton speaks enthusiastically about the French magazine "Littérature"; Thus, by extension, on the taste of the surrealist painters.
The exhibition program is intense and there while also having that as a stage designer: in 1929 is running, for example, sets and costumes for the ballets of Diaghilev in Paris, illustrates the "Calligrammes" by Apollinaire and Cocteau "Mythologies". In 1935 is called in the United States where he remained until 1936 with partner Isabella Far, which will remain linked to the death. In 1937 is forced to move between Milan, Paris, London, Florence, Turin and Rome, where he exhibited for the second time in the four-year plan. In 1945 will publish "Commedia dell'Arte moderna" and "memoirs of my life". Two years later he settled permanently in Rome of Spain.
Now at the end of his life, continues to paint with greater passion: "Per le emulsioni e il mio emplastico oil, they can give to the subject of my painting increasing transparency and density, increasing brightness and smoothness, I lose myself in weird dreams in front of the spectacle of my painting and mi sprofondo in reflections on the science of painting and the great mystery of art". In 1969 he published his first catalogue of his graphic works, in 1971 by all his works; in 1970 he exhibited at the Palazzo Reale in Milan in 1972 in New York, Paris in the same year appointed him member of the Academy of fine arts and devotes an exhibition; here will speak once again of his painting by comparing the metaphysical period that will define "invented and poetic Painting" from the next "the real painting, quality painting, painting realist," declares to follow the technique of Renaissance masters while remaining ' independent '. Giorgio De Chirico goes off in Rome on November 20, 1978, honored by critics around the world. His art, that's for sure, will be consecrated to the Olympus of art masters of the ' 900. Alain Jouffroy wrote of him, "a great teacher who has no followers. Never collects the vote unanimous. Worries because it is outside of this. Prevents around him are dangerous certainties, crystallizing views mode".
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.