Search results
Learn about the life and works of Giorgio de Chirico, an Italian artist and writer born in Greece who founded the metaphysical art movement. Explore his influences, themes, styles, and legacy in this comprehensive article.
The founder of the Metaphysical art movement, Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian (Born in Volos,Greece)surrealist painter, whose work implied a metaphysical questioning of reality.
- July 10, 1888
- November 20, 1978
These claustrophobic dreamscapes, with their atmosphere of melancholy and uneasy menace, captivated the French avant-garde of the 1910s and later inspired the Surrealists. Arriving in Paris in 1911, de Chirico immersed himself in the city’s avant-garde circles.
- Summary of Giorgio de Chirico
- Accomplishments
- Biography of Giorgio de Chirico
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
Giorgio de Chirico was a pioneer in the revival of Classicism that flourished into a Europe-wide phenomenon in the 1920s. His own interest was likely encouraged by his childhood experiences of being raised in Greece by Italian parents. And, while living in Paris in the 1910s, his homesickness may have led to the mysterious, classically-inspired pic...
De Chirico is most famous for the eerie mood and strange artificiality of the cityscapes he painted in the 1910s. Their great achievement lies in the fact that he treats the scenes not as conventio...Key to de Chirico's work is his love of the classical past. He came to this through his appreciation for German Romanticism, and it was this that revealed to him new ways of looking at the Classics...Much of the impact of de Chirico's pictures is derived from the restrained clarity of his style. He achieved this by rejecting the formal innovations of much modern art since Impressionism and by i...De Chirico always believed that his early academic training was vital in preparing him for his later work, and this conservative attitude set him apart from other modernists - particularly from the...Childhood
Giorgio de Chirico was born in Volos, Greece to Italian parents. His father was an engineer working on the construction of the Greek railway system and his mother was a noblewoman of Genoese origin. His parents encouraged his artistic development, and from a young age he took a strong interest in Greek mythology, perhaps because Volos was the port the Argonauts were supposed to have set sail from to retrieve the Golden Fleece. However, he was troubled by intestinal disorders in his youth, and...
Early Training
From 1903 to 1905, de Chirico studied at the Higher School of Fine Arts in Athens. Upon his father's death in 1905, the family visited Florence before moving to Munich the following year. De Chirico enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts there and developed a strong interest in Symbolist artists like German Max Klinger and particularly the Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin. He left Munich before graduating to rejoin his family in Milan in March 1910. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Florence and, via...
Mature Period
There were historical, mythological and philosophical themes in de Chirico's paintings throughout his career. He began his Metaphysical Town Square series with Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon(1909) painted in Florence. During this period, which lasted until 1919, there are reoccurring references to memory, loss, mystery, the passing of time, and architecture - particularly arches and towers - in desolate, melancholic squares and cityscapes. They appear to be images of depopulated Mediterranean...
Learn about the life and work of Giorgio De Chirico, a pioneer of Metaphysical Painting and a precursor of Surrealism. Explore his eerie cityscapes, his love of classical themes, and his conservative style.
- Italian
- July 10, 1888
- Volos, Greece
- November 20, 1978
May 15, 2020 · Learn how the Italian painter created his mysterious cityscapes that influenced Surrealism and explored the human condition. Discover his sources of inspiration, his signature style, and his legacy in art history.
- Maximilíano Durón
Giorgio de Chirico (born July 10, 1888, Vólos, Greece—died Nov. 19, 1978, Rome, Italy) was an Italian painter who, with Carlo Carrà and Giorgio Morandi, founded the style of Metaphysical painting.
Jun 26, 2022 · Learn about the life and work of Giorgio de Chirico, an Italian artist who created dreamlike paintings of ambiguous spaces and objects. Discover the characteristics of metaphysical art, such as classical architecture, light and shadow contrast, and mannequin figures, and how it influenced Surrealism.
