Surrealism

Giorgio de Chirico
1888-1978
painter

First studying painting in Athens and Florence, Giorgio de Chirico later trains at the Academy in Munich. Starting in 1909, he sojourns in Italy: first in Milan, then in Florence. In 1911 he leaves for Paris, and two years later he participates in various exhibitions like the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d’Automne. There he notably meets Guillaume Apollinaire and Pablo Picasso. With outbreak of the First World War, he returns to Italy, there meeting Carlo Carrà, with whom he develops 'pittura metafisica'. This 'metaphysical painting' considers true reality as hidden behind that which is directly perceptible. In his paintings, de Chirico attempts to 'unveil' this reality, revealing Truth by way of dreamlike compositions of everyday objects within an altered perspective. The emotional charge of these works is at the foundation of dadaism and surrealism.  René Magritte was among those deeply affected by the oeuvre of Giorgio de Chirico, something visible in Magritte’s style around 1925.  Two years earlier, thanks to his friend, the poet Marcel Lecomte, Magritte had first discovered (in the pages of the review Les Feuilles libres) a work by de Chirico, The Song of Love. For Magritte, this is a veritable revelation, as seen in his comment: 'de Chirico is the first painter to have thought of making a painting speak about something other than painting itself'.