Chirico, Giorgio de

* October 7, 1888 Volos/Greece - † November 19, 1978 Rome/Italy

biography

Giorgio de Chirico

He studied at the art school in Athens. After his father's death, he moved to Munich (1906-1910). Continuing his studies at the Munich Academy with Franz von Stuck, where he painted allegorical pictures under the influence of Böcklin and Max Klinger. Intensive reading of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. While traveling through northern Italy (1910) he had surreal experiences looking at the arcades of Turin. From 1911 to 1915 in Paris. Friendship with Picasso, Apollinaire and Max Jacob 1915 Return to Italy, where he founded the Scuola Metafisica in Ferrara, the "most metaphysical of all cities", together with his brother Alberto Savinio and the futurist Carlo Carra. He had met Carra in Ferrara in 1917 and was now painting his major metaphysical works. These go beyond purely optical reality by making familiar situations seem strange, often by emptying the image of pictorial objects and creating a threatening mood. It shows depopulated places in that strange, brooding atmosphere of midday. In 1918 he helped found Valori Plastici in Rome. Afterwards deep crisis and turning away from the metaphysical phase of his painting, which made him a "pre-Surrealist" for the Surrealists. He turns to the early Renaissance. In 1924 he helped found the magazine La Revolution Surrealist. They celebrate his novel “Hebdomeros” as a surrealist prose text. From 1925 he embraced classicism and has been one of the most zealous opponents of the avant-garde ever since. In 1970 the first Chirico retrospective was held in Milan and Hanover. He died on November 19, 1978 in Rome