De Chirico, Giorgio

(1888–1978)

   Born in Greece, De Chirico is one of the most enigmatic painters of the 20th century. After an early cubist period, he was influenced by the futurist painter Carlo Carra. Together with Carra, De Chirico gave birth to the so-called metaphysical school of art, which—by emphasizing stillness, emptiness, natural light, and the hyperrealistic depiction of objects— deliberately contradicted the frenzied celebration of motion that characterized futurist painting. De Chirico’s best work is unforgettable once seen; his figures are like a tailor’s dummies—eyeless, mouthless, and disquieting. His street scenes are as different from the crowded thoroughfares and kinetically charged piazzas portrayed by Umberto Boccioni as can be imagined. De Chirico painted the porticoed squares of desolate villages baking under a blue Mediterranean sky, with large areas of murky shadow and houses whose large windows look out blankly on to the street. The few human figures are solitary individuals, engaged in aimless tasks, and usually draped in shadow. Both dadaism and surrealism, and much of the best Fascist architecture, owed a great deal to De Chirico’s work.

   De Chirico’s artistic production from the late 1920s onward is considered to have declined in originality and quality. He died in Rome in 1978.

   See also Futurism; Piacentini, Marcello.