giorgio de chirico "mystery and melancholy of a street"

Giorgio De Chirico "Mystery And Melancholy Of A Street"

Mystery And Melancholy Of A Street Analysis

The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street is one of de Chirico's most baffling metaphysical paintings, as per usual, de Chirico presents various objects grouped together in incredible fashion. 

Mystery and melancholy of a street print by Giorgio de Chirico

Mystery and melancholy of a street print by Giorgio de Chirico

Mystery and melancholy of a street girl running with a hoop

The structures are presented in a style similar to Renaissance architecture. The utilization of dark and light within the structures creates a tense atmosphere of entrapment. De Chirico utilizes two contradictory vanishing points. None of de Chirico's works can really be portrayed as examples of subliminal painting or automatism in art.

De Chirico cherished Greek architecture. However, he did exclude classical themes and only wanted to celebrate their antiquity. They were incorporated as symbols of beauty - as esthetic references, to admire with present-day items and themes.

Like the vast majority of his paintings, The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street remains a mystery. The incorporation of subjects and items like a running young lady, with a circle hoop, and the shadow of the statue appear to make no sense.

Giorgio De Chirico Biography

Giorgio De Chirico Biography

Who Is Giorgio de Chirico?

One of the most innovative painters of the twentieth century, Giorgio de Chirico was an early champion of the classical revival of art in modern art terms. He helped expand, transform, and create new meanings to neoclassicism.

Giorgio De Chirico Paintings

Giorgio de Chirico History

De Chirico was conceived in Volos, Greece. Him and his brother adopted the nom de plume Savinio and saw each other as Argonauts. De Chirico had a solid classical education and he has visited many of the classical location within Greece. Nonetheless, his enthusiasm for the classical art wasn't just for studying, he wanted to understand the psychological and philosophical implications of classical art. 

De Chirico learned academic art, first in Athens and then in Munich. In his Memoirs, he recalled that in Athens, there was a time of four years where he drew in black and white; and examined various figures, before he started working with live models.

Paul Cezanne

Paul Cezanne

Did Paul Cezanne influence de Chirico?

While many of de Chirico contemporaries looked to Cezanne and later to Picasso for inspiration. De Chirico instead focused on nineteenth-century German art and literature for inspiration.

He learned the German romantic vision of a classical world while he was at the Munich Academy. Reading essayists Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, as well as Winckelmann. These romantic themes of tragedy, enigma, and melancholy gave to give de Chirico the basis he needed to create his own metaphysical paintings.

De Chirico chose to join his younger brother in Paris, France after his studies. He arrived in the capital city on July of 1911. He was unaffected by the energizing movement for contemporary French painting and drawing. De Chirico instead focused on the ideas he had created in his younger years. He began to paint scenes of Italian piazzas, with unrealistic view points, baffling classical statues, and inexplicable combinations of subjects.

Among his best early works are The Uncertainty of the Poet (1913, Tate Collection, London), The Song of Love (1914, Museum of Modern Art New York) and The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street (private collection).

Giorgio De Chirico Famous Artworks

Mystery And Melancholy Of A Street Girl Running With A Hoop

 

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