Giorgio de Chirico - METAPHYSICAL ICONOGRAPHY

Ten graphic works by Giorgio de Chirico, five in color and five in black and white, will allow the visitor to immerse himself in the enigmatic, suspended and visionary dimension typical of the poetics of the undisputed master of metaphysical painting.

Considered the leading exponent of metaphysical painting, Giorgio de Chirico (Volo, 1888 - Rome, 1978) created a radically new language capable of combining classicism and mystery, philosophy and vision. After his academic training in Munich, where he came into contact with Nietzsche's thought and German Symbolist art, he developed a poetics based on intuition and enigma. In 1910, in Florence, he made “L'énigme d'un après-midi d'automne,” a founding work of metaphysical painting. Paris would later be the place where he matured his famous cycles of the Italian Piazzas. Returning to Italy in 1915, he stayed in Ferrara and developed the Metaphysical Interiors. In the following years, his production was enriched with new themes and experiments, until he reached Neometaphysics, in post-World War II Rome, a phase in which he reworked the central iconographic nuclei of his poetics with a meditative spirit.

A number of works depicting his main subjects are featured in the exhibition, including:

Self-portraits: the itinerary opens with a self-portrait, a recurring theme in de Chirico's work. Few twentieth-century artists have been able to employ their own image with as much symbolic intensity. De Chirico portrays himself as a solemn figure, often dressed in period or mythological garb, taking on the likeness of timeless figures. In his self-portraits, the artist does not simply portray himself, but constructs the image of the demiurge, interpreter and guardian of the mystery of existence.

The Italian Piazzas: deserted, silent spaces dominated by classical architecture, long shadows and isolated figures: the Italian Piazzas are among the most iconic subjects of dechirican production. In these suspended places, every element, from distant trains to statues, from towers to arches, contributes to an enigmatic and immobile atmosphere. The square thus becomes a mental space, a metaphor for thought and mystery, in which art interrogates the invisible.

Horses: the horse, in de Chirico's work, is never simply a naturalistic subject. Rather, it represents an idea, a symbol, an archetype. Associated with ancient deities such as Poseidon, Mars, and Apollo, and with Homeric heroes, the horse becomes a totemic figure, charged with mythological meanings. But it is also a tribute to the great pictorial tradition: from Phidias to Gericault, via Delacroix and Etruscan reliefs. De Chirico paints horses as exercises in style, variations on a theme, but always charged with meaning. Often, his horses are placed in suspended landscapes, where they appear as visions out of time

Gladiators: de Chirico's wrestlers do not recount the violence of battle, but the theatricality of existence. Motionless and plastic figures, they seem crystallized in a mythical time. In these compositions, antiquity is reread through a metaphysical lens. In an interview edited by Jean José Marchand, the artist states “I will tell you that these gladiators have always made a strong impression on me, ever since I began to understand what gladiators were. I don't know, I find the gladiator to be a very dramatic character, devoted to death, who has to die. They are rare gladiators who survive, don't you think? Yes, there were gladiators who made it to old age. They would end up becoming gladiator trainers, teaching in the gladiator school. But it was very rare, in general they all died in the arena. The gladiator has always impressed me with the dramatic aspect, in short, of his fate.”

“Every object has two aspects: the common aspect, which is what is generally discerned, and which everyone discerns, and the spiritual and metaphysical aspect, which only a few individuals are able to see, in moments of clairvoyance or metaphysical meditation. The work of art must recall an aspect that is not manifested in the visible form of the object represented.”