Giorgio de Chirico: The Changing Face of Metaphysical Art
Edited with text by Victoria Noel-Johnson.
The first overview in decades of the eerie allegories of de Chirico, forefather of surrealism and genius of uncanny connections
Giorgio de Chirico began to develop his Pittura Metafisica, or Metaphysical Painting, around 1911, painting brooding, dreamy scenes of depopulated landscapes filled with incongruous objects. But though this is the work de Chirico is best known for, his Metaphysical Painting period lasted only until 1919, and he remained prolific and experimental throughout his entire long life (trying out, for example, a Return to Order and a Rubens-inspired neobaroque style).
In Giorgio de Chirico: The Changing Face of Metaphysical Art, the first de Chirico overview in more than 20 years, scholar Victoria Noel-Johnson explores the artist’s entire, complex career and proposes a cohesive logic within its diversity. Organizing the artist’s works thematically and reading them through the Nietzschean philosophy to which the artist was famously devoted, Noel-Johnson argues that despite de Chirico’s many changes in style, technique, subject, composition and tone over the course of six decades, all of his works offer tangible visions of intangible philosophical concepts.
Richly illustrated, this volume features works drawn from the artist’s foundation and some of the most prestigious museums and collections in Italy, presented alongside a rich core of archival documents including letters and period photographs.
Italian artist, writer and proto-surrealist Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) began to develop his Pittura Metafisica after traveling in Milan, Florence and Turin between 1909 and 1911, where he was inspired by the bright Mediterranean light, sun-drenched piazzas and receding arcades—elements that would become essential visual motifs in his best-known works.
Scholar Victoria Noel-Johnson provides the first Giorgio de Chirico synopsis in over 20 years. Although most famous for his eerie metaphysical paintings, de Chirico went through many complex periods to find his artistic style, all the while exploring deep philosophical concepts that affected his creative work.
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“Metaphysical Interior with Black Oval” (c. 1968) is reproduced from
Giorgio de Chirico: The Changing Face of Metaphysical Art, the first major survey on this profoundly influential, yet often maligned, artist in more than two decades. One of de Chirico’s “late” works (rejected by the Surrealists and many others, along with everything else the artist made after his early Metaphysical work of 1910–1918), it looks pretty fresh to many art historians today. Essayist Victoria Noel-Johnson comments on the gradual repositioning of the artist’s legacy in relation to twentieth-century art, acknowledging that “different facets of dechirican theory and practice inspired a number of artistic movements ranging from Dada, Surrealism, Magic Realism, Neue Sachlichkeit, the Novecento, to Pop Art, Transavanguardia and aspects of Postmodernism.” Always able to see many steps ahead, Marcel Duchamp commented as early as 1943 that de Chirico’s “admirers could not follow him and decided that the de Chirico of the second manner had lost the flame of the first. But posterity may have a word to say.” continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 11 in. / 264 pgs / 209 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $40.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $55 ISBN: 9788857240589 PUBLISHER: Skira AVAILABLE: 8/20/2019 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA LA
Giorgio de Chirico: The Changing Face of Metaphysical Art
Published by Skira. Edited with text by Victoria Noel-Johnson.
The first overview in decades of the eerie allegories of de Chirico, forefather of surrealism and genius of uncanny connections
Giorgio de Chirico began to develop his Pittura Metafisica, or Metaphysical Painting, around 1911, painting brooding, dreamy scenes of depopulated landscapes filled with incongruous objects. But though this is the work de Chirico is best known for, his Metaphysical Painting period lasted only until 1919, and he remained prolific and experimental throughout his entire long life (trying out, for example, a Return to Order and a Rubens-inspired neobaroque style).
In Giorgio de Chirico: The Changing Face of Metaphysical Art, the first de Chirico overview in more than 20 years, scholar Victoria Noel-Johnson explores the artist’s entire, complex career and proposes a cohesive logic within its diversity. Organizing the artist’s works thematically and reading them through the Nietzschean philosophy to which the artist was famously devoted, Noel-Johnson argues that despite de Chirico’s many changes in style, technique, subject, composition and tone over the course of six decades, all of his works offer tangible visions of intangible philosophical concepts.
Richly illustrated, this volume features works drawn from the artist’s foundation and some of the most prestigious museums and collections in Italy, presented alongside a rich core of archival documents including letters and period photographs.
Italian artist, writer and proto-surrealist Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978) began to develop his Pittura Metafisica after traveling in Milan, Florence and Turin between 1909 and 1911, where he was inspired by the bright Mediterranean light, sun-drenched piazzas and receding arcades—elements that would become essential visual motifs in his best-known works.
