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Greek-born Italian painter Giorgio De Chirico (1888-1978) was hugely influential in the early years of the Surrealist movement. His paintings during the teens in Paris, where he moved in 1911, caused such a stir that such important figures as Picasso and Paul Eluard immediately praised them. This phase of his work, which he later termed pittura metafisica (metaphysical painting) was marked by dramatic compositions involving sharp perspective, striking shadows, geometrical planes, voids of space, and a general feeling of anxiety and loneliness; the sense of absurdity evoked by the mannequin-like figures in almost nightmarish landscapes seemed to suggest a Freudian expression of the unconscious. After 1930, De Chirico turned to a more classical style of painting and continued in the same vein for the rest of his career; his later work was widely criticized, especially by the Surrealists who had so admired his early paintings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Solid introduction to a great 20th century artist
Taschen's Basic Art series is a wonderful value for the money.You get dozens of color plates on glossy paper and well-informed, sensitive scholars discussing the work.

This volume on Giorgio de Chirico is one of the best - the author clearly establishes how de Chirico's childhoold memories and various dreams and visions led him to create some of the most enigmatic, mysterious and philosophical pictures ever painted.

"What shall I love if not the enigma?" ... Read more

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Giorgio de Chirico's idiosyncratic symbolic style had a powerful influence on 20th-century art, and in particular on Surrealism. His strange dreamscapes, featuring classical statues, Italian piazzas, sinister shadows, geometric objects, and mannequins are filled with enigma. This richly illustrated book focuses on the artist's mysterious and fascinating representations of the human form and describes how events and friendships in his life influenced his artistic development.

At a young age de Chirico was deeply impressed by Arnold Boecklin's painting of Odysseus on the island of Calypso. De Chiroco appropriated Boecklin's Odysseus for his own paintings, at first with little modification, then pushing it ever further into the background until it appeared only as a shadow. The author explains how the figure underwent numerous additional alterations in later paintings before returning to centerstage as the famous "manichino" figure, the faceless tailor's dummy. ... Read more

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The enigmatic paintings of Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978), with their dreamlike imagery of deserted city squares filled with mysterious shadows, stopped clocks, and sleeping statues, had a profound influence on modern art. A key to understanding de Chirico's œuvre is an early series of eight paintings of the mythical Greek princess Ariadne.This theme, to which de Chirico returned again and again throughout his life, exhibits a serial approach to making art that foreshadows the work of Andy Warhol. Some 180 paintings, drawings, sculptures, and documentary photographs, as well as essays considering the literary, artistic, historical, and philosophical meanings of this series of paintings, including an unpublished text by Max Ernst, constitute an unparalleled range of primary research materials, and provide the best overall account of de Chirico's career. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

rethinking de chirico
this catalogue and the exhibition that accompanied it offer a brilliantly argued, revisionist account of the post-1919 work of giorgio de chirico, who remains one of the most important and influential artists of the 20th century. overturning decades of negative opinion regarding the paintings that de chirico made after the first world war, when he abandoned his earlier metaphysical style, michael taylor convincingly argues that the artist continued to create highly interesting and often thought provoking works of art. taylor uses the theme of the myth of ariadne, which runs throughout de chirico's long career, as a lens by which to explore the diverse range of stylistic changes that the artist underwent in response to external factors such as the return to order movement espoused by his friend jean cocteau. i would heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of modern art, especially surrealism and metaphysical painting, which has been forever changed by this superb account.

alan charlton,@tokyo university ... Read more

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As a forerunner of Pittura metafisica (Metaphysical art), Greek-Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) exerted a powerful influence on the subsequent development of Surrealism, New Objectivity and Magic Realism. For example, well before the Surrealists, de Chirico had discovered the power of the unconscious and the independent language of objects. Influenced by the symbolic painting of Arnold Bocklin and the dream pictures of Max Klinger, he created his provocative city views of deserted or statically enlivened squares. At the same time, he made ironically intellectual self-portraits that now form a large part of the artist's complete oeuvre. In this enlightening volume, curator and de Chirico scholar Gerd Roos discusses the artist's development as it is reflected in his times; his break with his innovative, seminal painting style; and his turn to a traditional, academic concept of art. ... Read more

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No Italian painter of this century has aroused so much comment, from eulogy to outright condemnation, as Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978). One of the initiators of surrealism, he is a key figure in modern art; his influence on later painters, particularly during his "metaphysical" period, is second only to Picasso's. De Chirico relied on imagery from the unconscious to create art with mythological, philosophical, and historical overtones. De Chirico began to write as soon as he began to paint - his painting was complemented by his writing. John Ashbery has called his novel "Hebdomeros" the finest of the surrealist novels; his poems, articles, essays, criticism and metaphysical writings are insightful. His memoirs belong to the great tradition of Italian autobiography, as vivid as those of Benvenuto Cellini and Vittorio Alfieri. Like those writers, de Chirico told his life story in a vein of militant egocentricity, rich in imagination and imagery. The self-portrait that emerges is a projection of the obsessions and inner conflicts of an artist who, gradually insulating himself from crumbling values, became convinced of his own creative supremacy at the centre of the universe.This edition comprises both volumes of the "Memoirs", along with "The Technique of Painting", a chronological table, and a bibliography of his writings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Comical, obsessive, paranoid, ironic, and brilliant.
In the first section, this book is the best set of personal memoirs I have ever read, surpassing even Robert Graves' "Goodbye to All That". De Chirico could have been a great novelist, had he chosen that path. His descriptions of a childhood in Greece are unforgettable.

But his novel "Hebdomeros" was also a beautiful piece of writing. It's interesting that three major painters associated with surrealism, De Chirico, Dali and Magritte, were also great writers. (De Chirico would hate to be associated with surrealism, but like it or not - he's their Daddy.)

I'm disappointed in part II of the memoirs. I'm also disappointed in what de Chirico does not tell us in part I. He barely touches on his relationship with Apollinaire, wherein the poet would give titles to some of de Chirico's paintings. He doesn't mention his thoughts on learning of Apollinaire's death. He doesn't tell us which paintings he titled, and which were given names by Apollinaire.

On one page, Paul Eluard had good enough taste to purchase his paintings, and thus was not beyond redemption. Yet on the very next page, Eluard was an onanist and a mystical cretin. What happened in a few paragraphs to change his opinion of the man? De Chirico doesn't tell us, except to blame the corruption of Eluard on Andre Breton.

Many details important to students of the era were not even mentioned. Isabella Far is written about at length. Yet de Chirico does not even mention his wedding to her. They are companions for decades and suddenly, he refers to her as his wife.Duh?When did you get married? Where were you? What was the wedding like?Somebody correct me if I overlooked something.

He outlived almost all of his enemies, (and according to de Chirico, his enemies were more numerous than the stars in the sky). He outlived almost all of the surrealists. What did he think when learning of the deaths of Eluard or Breton? What was his opinion of Magritte, to whom he had once written a friendly thank you note? What was it Magritte had written to him?

Unfortunately, details like this are not to be found. Instead, we get an enemies list of Italian critics and modernist painters, whose names most readers in the English-speaking world will not recognize.

Even so, the character revealed in these memoirs is unique. He's obsessive, paranoid, romantic, imperious to the modern world, and at times comical. But he is always guided by a stubborn integrity and a search for what he called "mystery and poetry".

Yet, he is involved in such comical episodes. He's been accused of forging his early paintings and selling them. He's accused of denouncing some of his genuine early paintings as forgeries because he was jealous of the high prices they were drawing. His later work could not command such high prices. Even stranger and more ironic, he's accused of forging his own paintings and then denouncing his forgeries as forgeries!

Despite these absurd adventures, no painter ever left a body of work that was more replete with mystery. No painter was ever more poetic. Rene Magritte credits de Chirico with teaching him that the supreme art was poetry, and that a painter at his best, could be a poet with his brush and canvas.

More than any 20th Century painter, de Chirico's greatest paintings were like that. They were poems, songs of love. And they will haunt generations to come, long after Picasso, Matisse, and Monet have been forgotten. At their best, these memoirs are a haunting, unforgettable poem.

Autobiography of genius (in both senses)
De Chirico, historically the first (small s) surrealist (even the Surrealists admit this) was exalted as a visionary for his earliest paintings, then conveniently vilified by his followers (led by the despicable Andre Breton) when he radically changed his style. The bitterness and frustration of this situation (and it was a long frustration -- De Chirco lived well into his nineties) is very much to the fore in this remarkable book. The mysterious qualities of his painting, too, are much in evidence, and great care is lavished on seemingly trivial incidents whose significance is left very much to the reader's own cogitations. Unforgettable are such passages as his defense of "maisons closes" (whorehouses) as decent workplaces, his memories of the Dalcroze-inspired Braun sisters, and the strange juxtaposition of his being required as a boy to kiss a priest's hand with the frustration of having always to refuse his barbers' offers of a rubdown. Not a book for everyone, surely, but for those seeking to unravel one of the great enigmas of 20th century art, essential.Footnote: De Chirico's status as a painter is currently going through a fascinating process of re-evaluation, and the "new" case for De Chirico is perhaps most eloquently put forth in a beautifully produced catalogue from Hunter College and the Fondazione Giorgio e Isa DeChirico in Rome, titled "Giorgio De Chirico and America," filled with superb reproductions, documentary photographs and stimulating essays. ... Read more

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The early decades of the 20th century saw unprecedented cooperation between the performing and visual arts. Painters and other visual artists working in a variety of avant-garde styles, such as Cubism, Surrealism, Dadaism, Constructivism, and Futurism, worked in the world of theater and dance throughout Europe, creating masterpieces inspired by the explosion of creativity in the performing arts, from the ballets of Diaghilev and Balanchine to the plays of the Russian Meierkhol'd and Futurists such as Marinetti, and operas by the likes of Wagner and Offenbach. It was this burst of integration that led to the formulation of the idea of the "Total Art Creation," (a term coined by Wagner), and enriched both the theater and the visual arts. This handsome volume, published on the occasion of a major exhibition at the Reina Sophia Museum in Madrid, examines these avant-garde experiments in fusion between the arts with extensive color illustrations by virtually every major painter of the period:artists like Picasso, Kandinsky, Leger, and others, as well as in-depth essays on several of the performing art forms and the ways they involved visual artists in their production.

Featuring Works by: Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Fernand Leger, Henri Matisse, Joan Miro, Francis Picabia, Andre Derain, Juan Gris, Georgio De Chirico, Kasimir Malevich, Alexander Rodchenko, George Grosz, El Lissitzky and others.

Essays by John Bowlt, Linn Garafola,Eric Michaud, Maria Teresa Ocana and Marga Paz.

230 color and 20 duotones.
9.5 x 6.75 in. ... Read more