Art of the 20th Century
Giorgio de Chirico
Giorgio de Chirico
(b Vólos, Greece, 10 July 1888; d Rome, 20 Nov 1978).
Italian painter, writer, theatre designer, sculptor and printmaker. De Chirico was one of the originators of PITTURA METAFISICA. His paintings are characterized by a visionary, poetic use of imagery, in which themes such as nostalgia, enigma and myth are explored. He was an important source of inspiration for artists throughout Europe in the inter-war years and again for a new generation of painters in the 1980s. His abrupt stylistic changes, however, have obscured the continuity of his approach, which was rooted in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, and this has often led to controversy.
