Exploring the metaphysics and powerful influence that started with Giorgio De Chirico and continued throughout 20th century
Metaphysics was born out of philosophy and there was no need for dreams to be mystified
De Chirico studied the philosophers Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Weininger from the early formative years and it is apparently no wonder that he was considered the founding force of what was to come for 20th century painters. His contemporaries admired his Metaphysical period 1909 to 1919 and considered it the foundation of Surrealism. What was to come afterwards was the exploration of dreams, merging of art and many other disciplines, the explosive force of innovations starting from theoretical physics to infinitely improving machines. For De Chirico, however the mystification of dreams and the external stimulation that flooded the world was not necessary. He believed in the dreams that the mind produces, as a result of philosophical inquiry.
Steering the wheels in the opposite direction, or going against the stream
To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken, it will enter the realms of childhood visions and dreams.
Giorgio De Chirico
After the metaphysical phase from 1920 De Chirico was regarded as outcast, and his return to craftsmanship and classical and baroque styles were completely against the trend and what was generally accepted as modern art. The conceptual striving towards finding the core and skeletons of the form were not willing to consider De Chirico’s later deeply disturbing in atmosphere and highly embellished and rich with classical and baroque styles and symbols.
What I hear is valueless; only what I see is living, and when I close my eyes my vision is even more powerful
De Chirico
It is interesting to note that Andy Warhol as well as many other artists emerging within 50 years of De Chirico’s clash with the contemporaries started appreciating his later work, and Warhol like many other of his contemporaries were fascinated with the concept of repetition or as Nietzsche evoked “eternal return”. He would take many aspects from his previous paintings and reinvent them within old style.
As a rebellion against the world that only accepted his 1909 to 1919 Metaphysical period, he used to forge his own pieces and would date than as in that period even if made in 1960s.
Concept of repetition, a static, freezing, solemn elements comprised the atmosphere, deeply intellectual and absolutely inspiring that governed De Chirico’s style.
Bio from Wikipedia:
Giorgio de Chirico (10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian artist. In the years before World War I, he founded the scuola metafisica art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. After 1919, he became interested in traditional painting techniques, and worked in a neoclassical or neo-Baroque style, while frequently revisiting the metaphysical themes of his earlier work.
