What you need to know about Giorgio de Chirico before going to the Tretyakov Gallery. Melancholy and metaphysical painting. Giorgio de Chirico Giorgio de Chirico all paintings

IN Tretyakov Gallery The first Russian exhibition of Giorgio de Chirico, one of the main Italian surrealists, known for his metaphysical painting, opened. Buro 24/7 tells you what you need to know about the artist before visiting the exhibition.

Metaphysics and early creativity

The de Chirico family comes from Greece. After my father's death future artist he moves with his family to Munich, where he continues his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts. During his Munich years he was influenced by the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer and Otto Weininger. Their ideas form his worldview, which he himself calls “metaphysics” - one of the main branches of philosophy, which examines questions of primary existence. Your name metaphysical painting will receive no earlier than 1917, when de Chirico met the artist Carlo Carra, whose search for a formal language was in many ways close to the master.

Self-portrait in a black sweater. Giorgio de Chirico. 1957

Nevertheless, all of de Chirico’s works of the 1910s can be classified as “metaphysics” - desert landscapes, where lonely characters appear against the backdrop of urban architecture with expressive shadows, or still lifes with classical busts, fruits and balls. As follows from the artist’s own memoirs, the first metaphysical insight arose in his mind in Piazza Santa Croce in Florence. “It suddenly seemed to me as if I was seeing everything around me for the first time,” he later wrote in his memoirs. This episode formed the basis of the first metaphysical picture - “The Mystery of an Autumn Afternoon” (1910).

Another important factor influences in de Chirico's work are the works of the German symbolists, Max Klinger and Arnold Böcklin, with whom de Chirico himself is initially compared. The pictorial and philosophical influences of this time would appear only a few years later, during the artist's stay in Paris. Following Munich, de Chirico moved to Milan and Florence, and after the war he finally reached Paris, where in the 1910s the career of de Chirico and other masters of the era took place - Pablo Picasso, Amadeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine, Constantin Brancusi and many others. Although de Chirico’s work is not directly related to them, Paris as an artistic environment played an important role in his development.

"Melancholy and the Mystery of the Street." Giorgio de Chirico. 1914

Another artist who influenced the formation of metaphysical painting was de Chirico’s younger brother, Alberto Savinio. Together with him, de Chirico published the magazine “Plastic Values”, and also published a number of theoretical works in which the fundamental principles of metaphysical painting were defined. Among them are transparency and irony, which later became main characteristic poetic and dreamy paintings of metaphysicians.

The first part of the exhibition is devoted to the period of the 1910s and metaphysics as the main method of de Chirico. The works of the 1920s and 30s, in which the artist reinterprets antiquity and the Old Masters, represent a logical continuation of the first stage. Between them, the viewer finds himself in the world of Diaghilev’s ballets, in the creation of costumes for which de Chirico was directly involved.

Costumes for Diaghilev's ballets and a return to eternal themes

If at the beginning of his career, costumes and scenery for Diaghilev were created mainly by members of the World of Art group - Lev Bakst, Valentin Serov and Alexander Benois, then Andre Derain and Pablo Picasso are working on this in Paris. The latter also created the scenography for the ballet Pulcinella in 1920. In 1931, after the death of Diaghilev, this production returned to the stage in the scenery of de Chirico. In addition, the artist designed costumes for latest project Diaghilev's Ball (1929), as well as for Proteus, staged by the Russian Ballet of Monte Carlo at Covent Garden.

"Song of Love". Giorgio de Chirico. 1914

The turn of the 1920s-30s in de Chirico’s work was marked not only by his work in the theater, but also by his interest in historical and mythical subjects. During these same years, he began working on the aforementioned magazine “Plastic Values,” which revived the ideals of classical painting. The following appear on de Chirico’s canvases: historical subjects, How Trojan War and the Battle of Thermopylae, and fragments of aqueducts, columns and temples are formed into single figures of “Archaeologists”. These motifs serve as references to the profession of his wife Raisa Gurevich-Krat. In those same years, de Chirico often turned to the art of the Old Masters: among his paintings it is easy to recognize the prototypes of Watteau, Titian, Boucher, Fragonard, Canaletto and Rubens.

Separate sections of the exhibition are presented by sculpture and graphics by the artist - terracotta figures in bronze and sketches of the same mannequins, as well as preparatory sketches for paintings. The cycle of one hundred works presented at the exhibition ends with the concept of “Neo-metaphysics” - that’s what they call late period creativity from 1968 to 1976. At this time, the artist created copies of existing works, reworking them in a new style, much more complex. A striking example This is “The Inner Metaphysics of the Workshop,” where the artist’s seemingly familiar canvases are depicted inside a new painting.

« Internal metaphysics of the workshop». Giorgio de Chirico. 1969

De Chirico most significantly influenced the painting of the surrealists, whose association arose ten years after the appearance of metaphysical artists. Without the work of de Chirico, it is difficult to imagine the works of Salvador Dali or Rene Magritte, and Andre Breton himself was so fascinated by the painting “The Brain of a Child” that he got off the bus when he saw it in the window.

Although de Chirico is associated with Russia only through his work for Diaghilev’s ballets, curator Tatiana Goryacheva draws parallels between the Italian artist and Suprematist Malevich, and the dreamy Deineka, and the cubists Shevchenko and Rozhdestvensky. This can best be understood only by seeing it with your own eyes.

Giorgio de Chirico, the outstanding Italian surrealist artist, the founder of metaphysical painting, was born and raised in Greece, and perhaps it is this fact that makes him so different from his colleagues.
De Chirico, rather, is not even a surrealist - he is an unrealist, his reality is not surreal, it is unreal, like in a dream. He is the lord of dreams, not the creator of another reality. The action on his canvases takes place in another dimension - in the dimension of dreams.

De Chirico “Melancholy and Mystery of the Street”, 1914 - blog.i.ua

For some reason, the first thing that comes to mind when looking at the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico is their similarity to the novels of Vladimir Nabokov. The same expanded, endless space, the same absence of sound: there is a picture, but there is no sound. How many times have you screamed silently in your sleep? Find yourself in a room without walls, ceiling and floor?

When you look at de Chirico’s paintings, not for a moment do you experience any bewilderment or a heavy feeling: they are light, like the light, strict, stingy Greek Antiquity, on which de Chirico was brought up, having been born in the Greek city of Volos on the shores of the Pagasean Gulf.

De Chirico “Nostalgia for the Infinite” - http:/blog.i.ua

We made Giorgio de Chirico “Person of the Week” for several reasons: firstly, because he is connected with Greece by an umbilical cord, like a son with his mother, and this connection runs like a red thread in his art, and secondly, because this year two anniversaries of de Chirico are celebrated at once - 130 years from the date of his birth and 35 years from the date of his death, and thirdly - because de Chirico’s personal life also had something to do with Russia... through his two Russian wives!

Well, to be completely frank, the image of Giorgio de Chirico surfaced in our memory in connection with the recent night journey of the legendary Mudzurisa (Koptelki) train along the historical railway line connecting the villages of the mountain (and peninsula) at the beginning of the 20th century. Pelion, where centaurs lived in mythological times.

What is the connection between the master of painting, the Italian de Chirico, and the provincial “Koptelka”, we will tell you below.

Living mythology

This is Evaristo, whose name is still remembered today kind words in Greek Thessaly, he built a branch in Pelion, among dense pine, oak, and cedar forests, where, as old-timers say, to this day especially sensitive ears hear the clatter of centaurs’ hooves. It was thanks to Evaristo de Chirico that “Muzouris”, “Koptelka”, ran from village to village of Pilion, making it easier for the inhabitants of Pilion to move around.

Self-portrait. Photo from the site - uploads4.wikipaintings.org

Of the two sons of the de Chirico family, neither the eldest Giorgio nor the younger Andrea became an engineer, as their strict father wished. Strict, but not tyrannical: he not only did not interfere with his children’s passion for art, but, on the contrary, encouraged them to study painting, music, and literature. And, if he had lived a little longer - and Evaristo died in 1905 - he would probably have been proud of his teaching talents and parental tolerance. Giorgio became an outstanding painter, Andrea, who adopted the pseudonym Alberto Savigno, became famous writer, metaphysical art theorist, musician and artist. True, Andrea, who was only 3 years younger than Giorgio, lived 26 years less in this world: he died in 1952, at the age of 61. It was precisely in the brevity of his life that he was like his father...

And yet Evaristo was an artist. Let him be an artist in metal, an artist of living paintings that moved against a living background, amazingly beautiful landscape. He was a creator, a tamer of nature.

“I spent my first years in the land of Classicism, playing on the shores that remember the ship “ARGO” still setting off on its voyage, at the foot of the mountain that witnessed the birth of the fleet-footed Achilles and the wise instructions of his teacher, the centaur,”- Dorgio de Chirico wrote in his autobiography, like Achilles, brought up on ancient Greek wisdom.

Both great de Chirico brothers lingered deep in their souls in their childhood, which ended not even with the move to Athens in 1899, but with the death of their father and departure to Munich. Greece for both will remain a symbol of innocence, cloudless happiness, that same period in which, like in a work of art, “there should be no logic,” as Giorgio de Chirico argued. Andrea de Chirico, more precisely, Alberto Savigno, in 1919 in his poem of the same name, told his readers about the “tragedy of childhood,” more precisely, a lost childhood, like a lost paradise:

“Be quiet and rest. It's quiet here
The very voice of life. Ancient lament
The dying echo will return later,
The moment the charm dies.
Bow before the unchanging peace,
In which it melts, losing magic,
Chant of the Siren.
Faster than to the calling coasts
You will land, they will go into exile,
Shrouded in fog, Compassion
Beloved daughters - hopes

Translation by Katerina Kanaka

We don't know how it would have turned out creative destiny Giorgio de Chirico, if he had stayed in Greece and completed his studies at the Polytechnic, with the outstanding Greek teacher-painters Giorgos Iakovidis and Constantine Volonakis, in whose workshops he spent two years, from 1903 to 1905. Anyway, moving to Munich and Munich Academy I did not make any works by the realistic artist from Giorgio de Chirico. He was conquered by Paris, where he moved to his brother, and where he met Andre Breton, Guillaume Apollinaire, Pablo Picasso.

De Chirico "Archaeologists". Photo from the site - smallbay.ru/chirico.html

Ancient art, the dream of Greece, memories and acute feeling loneliness, blurred boundaries between reality and dreams became the material from which Giorgio de Chirico made his paintings. In the middle life path- together with his Russian wife Raisa Gurevich, and for the last 45 years of his life - with his wife of Russian origin, Isabella Pakszver.

Russian wives of Giorgio de Chirico

Giorgio de Chirico met his first wife, ballerina Raisa Gurevich, in 1923 in Italy, at the Pirandello Theater, during a production of Igor Stravinsky’s play “The Story of a Soldier”: the artist made the scenery, the ballerina danced. On next year they got married, moved to Paris, and Raisa left ballet to devote herself to her more talented husband. But the role of a housewife did not quite suit her: having become interested in archeology, she graduated from the department of classical archeology at the Sorbonne. Creative woman could not be content with just the role of the wife of a genius: she had enough strength to make her contribution, if not to art, but to science, and she made it.

After parting with de Chirico in the early 30s, former ballerina and an accomplished archaeologist moved to Italy. The last marriage of Raisa Gurevich with the director of the archaeological expedition, the outstanding Italian archaeologist Guido Calza, was more fruitful: Raisa Gurevich Calza herself became an outstanding scientist-historian, whose contribution to science was highly appreciated by the Italian government, which awarded her a gold medal for her contribution to Italian culture.

It is noteworthy that Raisa Gurevich-Calza, who was widowed less than 10 years after her marriage, in 1946, survived Giorgio de Chirico by only a year, and was, like the artist, buried in a Roman cemetery.

After separating from Raisa Gurevich, Giorgio de Chirico married for the second time in 1933 to Isabella Pakszver, a woman with Russian roots, with whom he lived until the end of his life.

We couldn't find practically anything about her. Perhaps only in a short article by Konstantin Korelov “Paradoxes of Painting”. It does not indicate the name of "de Chirico's wife", but we're talking about specifically about Isabella Paxzver:

"Boris Messerer, now - folk artist Russia, and in the 60s of the last century, an aspiring theater decorator, at one time visited Giorgio de Chirico in Rome. Messerer's memories vividly characterize last years Italian artist.

“Upon entering the apartment, we were shocked by the luxury of the furnishings. On the walls are huge paintings in golden frames, depicting some horses and naked women on these horses, rushing somewhere. Plots of baroque content, having nothing to do with metaphysical painting. A completely different Chirico - salon, luxurious, but absolutely no avant-garde ideas.”

Chiriko’s wife served as translator at the meeting, but there was no conversation as such. The guests asked to show them “those” paintings that made the painter’s name, but the wife stubbornly pointed her finger at the academic daub hanging on the walls, claiming that this was the true Chirico.

De Chirico “School of Gladiators” - http://blog.i.ua

“Suddenly Signor de Chirico goes somewhere and suddenly brings out first one picture - a small metaphysical composition, then a second, third, fourth and puts them just like that, on the floor in the hallway. He understood what we were talking about! We are shocked, these are the pictures we wanted to see! His wife was very unhappy with this whole situation. And then it turned out that she was friends with Furtseva, our minister of culture at that time, and they spoke the same language, the language of socialist realism. They had an ideological friendship, and Madame did not want to know any avant-garde..."

That's the story! Isabella Pakszver was a friend of Ekaterina Furtseva!

Truly the ways of the Lord are inscrutable!

Just like the paths of art!

The film "Paradox" is about Giorgio de Chirico. Source - www.youtube.com/paradoxirina

February 2nd, 2012 , 10:40 pm

I wanted to collect in one place some of the “metaphysical” landscapes of Giorgio de Chirico, painted in the 10s and 20s of the last century, and the surreal landscapes of Salvador Dali, created fifteen to twenty years later. It is interesting to see how de Chirico’s ideas were reflected in Dali’s work. Moreover, everyone in Russia knows Dali, and relatively few know de Chirico.

The Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico (1888 – 1978) became famous for his works in the style of so-called “metaphysical painting”. The main method of metaphysics was the contrast between a realistically accurately depicted object and the strange atmosphere in which it was placed, which created a surreal effect. The founder of this trend was de Chirico himself, and later a small group of like-minded artists formed. In the early 20s of the twentieth century, the metaphysical movement essentially disappeared from the scene.

Let me make a reservation right away that my comments are not at all a claim to art historical analysis, but only an attempt to express my impressions, nothing more.

Here's one of the first famous works de Chirico:

Giorgio de Chirico. The Mystery of Arrival and Afternoon, 1912

The landscape is emphatically geometric, the sky is neatly painted with even horizontal strokes, exaggerated straight lines of shadows and a chessboard grotesquely emphasize adherence to the laws of perspective - all this gives the landscape a bewitching lifelessness and distances and fences it off from living reality. The figures of two self-absorbed people create a dream effect.

Giorgio de Chirico. Melancholy have a nice day, 1913

Exaggerated perspective, sky painted with even strokes. Here we see two elements present in many of de Chirico's landscapes: the colonnade and the statue. Let us also note that the elements of the landscape (building, person, statue) are placed on an almost ideal geometric plane. Because of this, it seems as if the landscape is disintegrating into separate artifacts - an association arises not with reality, but with the exhibition of sculptures in the exhibition hall.

Giorgio de Chirico. Piazza d'Italia, 1914, And Piazza d’Italia (Autumn Melancholy), 1914

And again - exaggerated perspective, flat sky, colonnades, statues, ideal flatness of the landscape. Let us note two more elements that are repeated in de Chirico's paintings - the rotunda and waving flags (both are present, for example, in the 1912 painting above).

To further emphasize the flat surface, de Chirico often places objects on something like a plank platform, or simply outlines the plane itself:

Giorgio de Chirico. Restless Muses, 1916, And The Great Metaphysician, 1917

Salvador Dalí first appeared in Paris in 1926 and apparently saw de Chirico's work around the same time. Soon Dali changes his art style: he stops exercising in the spirit of cubism and begins to paint landscapes compositionally reminiscent of the paintings of de Chirico:

Salvador Dali. Phantasmagoria, 1929

An endless lined plane on which columns, statues and strange objects are placed - we saw all this in de Chirico.

Salvador Dali. Fountain, 1930

Salvador Dali. Paranoid Horse Woman, 1930

On last picture, by the way, we see direct references to de Chirico: the red tower in the background at the top left and the base of a giant red column. This is what de Chirico looks like:

Giorgio de Chirico. Red Tower, 1913, And Conquest of the Philosopher, 1914

Combining de Chirico’s beloved image of a red tower/pipe and a hooligan cannon with two cannonballs from the painting “The Conquest of the Philosopher,” Dali draws the following composition:

Salvador Dali. Red anthropomorphic tower, 1930

The typical de Chirico flag at the top of the... hmm-hmm... building has not been forgotten either. In general, Dali loved to joke - this is well known.

Let us give another example of the overlap of themes between de Chirico and Dali (the theme is archeology, the image is a hybrid of human figures and buildings):

De Chirico, Archaeologists, 1927, And Dali, Archaeological Echoes of Millet's Angelus, 1935

Another example of roll call artistic images de Chirico and Dali:

Giorgio de Chirico. Fortune Teller's Reward, 1913, And The Mystery and Melancholy of the Street, 1913

Salvador Dali. Morphological echo, ca. 1936

The arch on the right side of the picture evokes associations with the arch from “The Fortune Teller’s Reward,” and the girl with the hoop turned into a girl with a skipping rope - an image present in Dali on several canvases (following de Chirico, Dali acquired the habit of repeating his favorite image on different paintings). In "Morphological Echo" Dali used one of his favorite techniques: the same object is presented in different guises(the silhouette of the bell in the arch opening almost exactly repeats the silhouette of the girl with a skipping rope). We see the same technique at one of the most famous paintings Dali:

Salvador Dali. Metamorphosis of Narcissus, 1937

Let's pay attention to the area with a chess square on the right side of the picture - there is a direct association with de Chirico's 1912 painting, shown at the very beginning of this article.

But here is just a landscape in the spirit of de Chirico, which Dali began to paint in 1935 - but did not finish:

* * *
Beginning in 1920, Giorgio de Chirico gradually moved away from the “metaphysical” landscape in its pure form, the compositions of his paintings became more complex, and the style became more classical:

Giorgio de Chirico. Roman Square (Mercury and Metaphysics), 1920

Giorgio de Chirico. Departure of the Argonauts, 1921

Giorgio de Chirico. Strange Travelers (Romanesque Landscape), 1922

Giorgio de Chirico. Coast of Thessaly, 1926

In the paintings “Romanesque Square”, “Romanesque Landscape” and “The Shore of Thessaly” we see new (compared to the paintings of the 10s) repeating elements: statues and people on the roofs.

Starting from the late 20s, de Chirico painted mainly landscapes in the neo-Baroque style. However, until he was very old, he liked to create copies of works from his early period from time to time.

Deserted squares big cities, worn out under the midday sun or tired after sunset... Antique columns and arches, proudly and lonely towering above the ground... Statues silently looking at this melancholy... Paintings Giorgio de Chirico imbued not only with paint, but also with mystery, anxiety, silence.

The artist said: “We must not forget that the picture should be a reflection of an internal sensation, and internal means strange, strange means unknown or not entirely known.”.

Many believe that the action in de Chirico's paintings takes place in the dimension of dreams. On these canvases everything is as believable and surreal at the same time, as in “night videos of the subconscious.” Strange combinations of objects, strange atmosphere, fantastic reality. In fact, all this is not just like that. All these are features of the direction in art invented by de Chirico - metaphysical painting.

The artist founded this movement together with his friend Carlo Carra at the beginning of the 20th century. The popular Wikipedia gives the following explanation of metaphysical painting: “In metaphysical painting, metaphor and dream become the basis for thought to go beyond ordinary logic, and the contrast between a realistically accurately depicted object and the strange atmosphere in which it is placed enhances the surreal effect.”.

Unfortunately, already in the early 20s, metaphysical painting ceased to exist. The last two exhibitions of this art direction took place in Germany in 1921 and 1924. However, de Chirico’s brainchild did not die, but only grew into something more - into the great Surrealism. The father of this movement, Henri Breton, said that only the works of de Chirico made it possible to express the program of the surrealists through painting. He also called the artist “the creator of modern mythology.”

Heat, silence, anxiety... Stifling, heavy atmosphere and an extinct city. A little girl with a hoop quickly runs across a deserted square straight towards an ominous shadow peeking out from around the corner. A white building with arches characteristic of the artist, drawn as if using a ruler, goes into the distance. The empty van in the foreground grins ominously with its open lid. It is interesting that the image of the girl is completely atypical for de Chirico’s painting. Many art historians believe that the child in this painting appeared due to an exhibition taking place at that time in France. They say that de Chirico was impressed by the work “A Sunday afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte” and transferred the little girl to his canvas - the characters are indeed very similar. It is also interesting that the objects in the painting “The Mystery and Melancholy of the Street” are depicted in different projections: the van in a geometric one, and the houses in a perspective one. They have different distortion rates, which enhances the strangeness effect.

But let's get back to the plot. What's going on? Where have all the adults gone? Why is this child calmly rolling a hoop towards danger? What did the author want to say with this picture? You must find the answers to these questions yourself. In your own subconscious.

Giorgio de Chirico believed that real world- this is just a thin shell, under which hides the dark and mysterious world subconscious. He wanted to reveal secret meaning things through objective and material forms familiar to the eye. The task of the painter, according to the artist, is to be a guide and mediator between the viewer and his symbols hidden from consciousness.

The great Cubist called the artist “the singer of the train stations.” This is due to the fact that trains and stations are too often found in his paintings. Here, for example, is the painting “Piazza d’Italia: melancholy.” We see a deserted square, a statue of Ariadne, arches. Many art historians believe that this plot is an interpretation of the myth of Ariadne and her thread. By the way, we see the same heroine in another work - “Ariadne, the silent statue.” Again, the same components of the mosaic: arches, shadows, a statue, a tower, pointed corners and a sketchy image. Some may see this as an imitation of Picasso, with whom the artist was friends. There is also another painting - “Piazza d’Italia with equestrian statue" It shows everything the same, only different. In general, many of the artist’s works on metaphysical themes are very similar to each other. “The Happiness of Return”, “Melancholy”, “The Mystery of the Day” and “The Red Tower”, as well as the above-described paintings of the Italian square, echo each other.

As for the trains, it is interesting that Father Giorgio de Chirico supervised the construction railway along the Athens-Thessaloniki line. Perhaps all these locomotives are some kind of greeting to one’s own childhood or an introspection of mental trauma. It was not for nothing that the painter read the works of Nietzsche.

“I began to paint pictures in which I could express that powerful and mystical feeling that opened up to me while reading Nietzsche: Italian cities on a clear autumn day, the melancholy of midday... I can’t imagine art any other way. Thought must break away from what we call logic and meaning, free itself from all human attachments in order to see objects from a new angle, highlight their previously unknown features.”, said the artist.

The founding father of surrealism is rightfully considered to be Salvador, our great, Dali, and many, with a fleeting mention of this artistic movement, will instantly remember a couple of paintings by the picturesque Spaniard. However, experienced art critics, if they are also arrogant, will spit in your face the name of the Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico.

Long before the paintings officially called surre were created, he had already crossed the metaphysical line of the reality of what was depicted. In the years when Dali was just getting acquainted with modern art, De Chirico had already written a series of his most famous works: “Nostalgia for Infinity” (1911), “Melancholy and the Mystery of the Street” (1914), “Nostalgia of the Poet” (1914), “Metaphysical interior" (1917). Then, having no analogues of description, his paintings would be called “metaphysical painting,” but now we clearly understand that these were those first embryos of surrealism - unreal, logical, absurd and mysterious.

"Turin Spring"

The avant-garde defies rational analysis, description and understanding at all. This is a space that is on the edge - in these paintings there are only a small number of elements that bring general composition from a state of static and rest. De Chirico very often plays with shadows and perspective, deliberately breaking it in certain places, which only somewhere on a subconscious level gives us a feeling of the unreality of what is happening. For example, in the painting “Melancholy and the Mystery of the Street,” the silhouette of a running girl is deliberately distorted, and therefore more reminiscent of some kind of retreating and blurring shadow. In this case, it is not clear what it is - an object or a shadow reflected from it. Then the direction of this shadow is not clear, because the light is directed in the other direction. The first visual tricks and riddles, which Magritte and Dali would later come to, began in such seemingly elusive little details in de Chirico’s paintings.

"Melancholy and the Mystery of the Street"

This whole phrase completely determines the mood of our story. Yes, he was great, he created a revolution in painting, but in all this, the main word is “was”. No matter how it may sound, de Chirico died too late. The peak of his creativity falls in the second decade of the twentieth century, when in 1911 he moved from his native Volos to Paris. Here, truly, the real de Chirico is born - uncompromising, revolutionary, breaking logic in the head of everyone who dared to look at his paintings.

"Two Masks"

"The Great Metaphysician"

"Melancholy of Departure"

"The Conquest of the Philosopher"

But, after the First World War, something clicked in his mind, a protracted crisis and some kind of total depression ensued. And if Picasso resolved their suicidal moods solemnly and in the “blue period,” then de Chirico did not succeed. At first, he simply copied his own paintings, pushing them like sausage lying around on the shelves, which no one wanted to taste, passing off each of them as truly genuine. And then something completely irreparable happened - he was completely exhausted and began to promote academism as the only true religion, simultaneously throwing mud at modern Art, the founder of which was literally a couple of decades ago. Sad, sad and very tough, but such is life.

Once, already in the 60s, Boris Messerer, at that time a theater decorator in the USSR, visited Giorgio de Chirico in Rome. He so wanted to see that very “metaphysical” that he was simply killed by what he saw. From Messerer's memories of the meeting:

“Upon entering the apartment, we were shocked by the luxury of the furnishings. On the walls are huge paintings in golden frames, depicting some horses and naked women on these horses, rushing somewhere. Plots of baroque content, having nothing to do with metaphysical painting. A completely different Chirico - salon, luxurious, but absolutely no avant-garde ideas.”

De Chirico’s wife was a translator at this meeting; she was asked where “those” paintings by Giorgio were, but she stubbornly pointed fingers at academic boredom, saying that he was a true artist.

“Suddenly Signor de Chirico goes somewhere and suddenly brings out first one picture - a small metaphysical composition, then a second, third, fourth and puts them just like that, on the floor in the hallway. He understood what we were talking about! We are shocked, these are the pictures we wanted to see! His wife was very unhappy with this whole situation. And then it turned out that she was friends with Furtseva, our minister of culture at that time, and they spoke the same language, the language of socialist realism. They had an ideological friendship, and Madame did not want to know any avant-gardeism.”

"Still life with silverware"

Giorgio de Chirico lived to be 90 years old and into old age, embracing his social life. realistic dry wife, with his banal classicist paintings in golden pompous frames, went into another world. Whether he regretted that he renounced his discovery or was satisfied with the measured life of a simple imitator, we, fortunately, will never know. After all, both fates are sad.