Fantasy Art

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Fantasy Art

• Giorgio de Chirico
• 1888-1978

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de Chirico

• Major Italian painter, who founded the
  metaphysical school. He was born in Volos,
  Greece, the son of an Italian engineer. He
  studied art in Athens and in Munich, where he was
  strongly influenced by the allegorical works of
  the 19th-century Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin.

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de Chirico

• From 1924 to 1930 de Chirico gave enormous
  impetus to the surrealist movement and influenced
  such surrealists as Yves Tanguy and Salvador
  Dalí. By the mid-1930s he had turned to an
  outworn academic style and chose to become a
  fashionable portraitist.

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de Chirico

• As an army conscript in Ferrara in 1915 de
  Chirico met the futurist painter Carlo Carrà
  together they founded the magazine Pittura
  Metafisica in 1920. From 1915 to 1925 de Chirico
  painted bizarre, faceless mannequins and
  juxtaposed wildly unrelated objects in his still
  lifes, a technique adopted by the surrealists.

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de Chirico

• In Turin and Florence and in Paris, where he
  settled in 1911, he painted deserted cityscapes,
  such as Enigma of an Autumn Night (1910) and
  Mystery and Melancholy of a Street (1914). These
  early metaphysical works, through sharp contrasts
  of light and shadow and exaggerated perspective,
  evoke a haunting, ominous dream world.

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Melancholy and Mystery of a Street 1914
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The Song of Love 1914
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The Song of Love

• The Song of Love (also known as Le chant d'amour
  or Love Song 1914) is a painting by the Italian
  metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico. It is
  one of the most famous works by de Chirico and an
  early example of the surrealist style, though it
  was painted ten years before the movement was
  founded by André Breton in 1924.
• It depicts an outdoor architectural setting
  similar to other works by de Chirico at this
  time. This time however, the main focus is a
  small wall on which is mounted a Greek sculpted
  head and a surgeons glove. Below it is a green
  ball. On the horizon is the outline of a
  locomotive, an image that recurs several times
  during this period of de Chiricos career.

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Metaphysical Art

• Metaphysical art (Italian Pittura metafisica) is
  the name of an Italian art movement, created by
  Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà. Their
  dream-like paintings of squares typical of
  idealized Italian cities, as well as apparently
  casual juxtapositions of objects, represented a
  visionary world which engaged most immediately
  with the unconscious mind, beyond physical
  reality, hence the name. The metaphysical
  movement provided significant impetus for the
  development of Dada and Surrealism.

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de Chirico

• Carrà had been among the leading painters of
  Futurism. De Chirico had been working in Paris,
  admired by Apollinaire and avant-garde artists as
  a painter of mysterious urban scenes and still
  lifes.The two painters already knew of each other
  and formed an immediate alliance, further
  encouraged by the poetry of Alberto Savinio, de
  Chirico's younger brother. Aside from De Chirico
  and Carrà, other painters associated with
  metaphysical art include Savinio, Giorgio Morandi
  and Filippo De Pisis.

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The Disquieting Muses 1916
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The Disquieting Muses

• The Disquieting Muses (in Italian Le Muse
  inquietanti, 1916) is a painting by the Italian
  metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico. It is
  one of the most famous works of the Italian
  painter and of metaphysical art.
• The painting was finished in 1916, during World
  War I, when De Chirico was in Ferrara. The city,
  considered by him the "perfect metaphysical
  city", offered several hints to his inspiration,
  including the Castello Estense which appears in
  the background of the painting. Other typical
  elements of De Chirico art of the time are
  present in the work the dummies, the empty urban
  spaces, with a square covered by wooden plates to
  resemble a stage, a factory with high chimneys,
  all set within a timeless frame.
• The Muses are "disquieting" for, in De Chirico's
  ideals, they had to path the way to overcome
  appearances and made the observers dialogue with
  unknown. This painting would later become the
  inspiration for Sylvia Plath's poem "The
  Disquieting Muses".

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Muses

• The Muses (Ancient Greek) perhaps from the
  o-grade of the Proto-Indo-European root men-
  "think") in Greek mythology, poetry, and
  literature are the goddesses or spirits who
  inspire the creation of literature and the arts.
  They were considered the source of the knowledge,
  related orally for centuries in the ancient
  culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and
  myths. Originally said to be three in number, by
  the Classical times of the 400s BC, their number
  had grown and become set at nine goddesses who
  embody the arts and inspire the creation process
  with their graces through remembered and
  improvised song and stage, writing, traditional
  music, and dance.

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The Poet and His Muse 1922
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Le Vaticinateur" (1915)
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Metaphysical Interior with Biscuits
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• Hector et Andromache

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La Commedia e La Tragedia
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Artwork Evaluation Questions

• What do you think the artist was trying to say?
• How did the artist use the materials to express
  idea?
• Describe the cultural or historical influence in
  this work.
• What connections can you make to specific
  cultures?
• What does the artwork symbolize or represent?
• Discuss the expressive qualities of the artwork?
• Do you like or dislike the artwork---why?
• Do the elements of art play a significant role in
  the artwork? How and why?
• What is the focal point of the artwork?---why do
  you think the artist was trying to emphasize this?