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An
exhibit celebrating De Chirico - the “Pictor Optimus” - is being held
at the Palazzo Salmatoris in Cherasco (TO), with an anthology of works
including paintings and sculptures.
The
show will run until 17 December of this year.
The
works by the maestro from Volos include some particularly important
ones from each period, representing his most important themes, such
as “Italian Piazzas”, a common theme in the culture of that period,
dear to Nietzsche as well as D’Annunzio of “Laudi” and Dino Campana
with his “Canti Orfici”.
There
are sixty paintings testifying to the protean ingenuity of the artist.
De Chirico was greatly appreciated in France since he knew well how
to express the restlessness and upheaval of this era, just as Svevo
and Pirandello and the previously mentioned Vate¹ were the most important
intellectual interpreters on a literary level.
Just
like Euripides in the past, De Chirico faithfully followed the cliché
of an artist alienated by society, destined to live as an outsider.
Wrongly
considered a master of the nascent Surrealist movement begun by Breton,
De Chirico gave life to a movement that offered a response to the Futurist
glorification of the present and the iconoclast frenzy that led Marinetti
to suggest destroying all the museums as “Cemeteries for art.”
In
his metaphysical or “beyond the sensitive things” search, the painter
expressed the enigma of his beloved Nietzsche, which revealed itself
in everything: a mannequin, a deserted town square, an arcade or a horse
on the banks of the Aegean - they all clarify for us that there is something
other than the pure “ ars gratia artis “.
It
is said that on display there are oils and sketches, graphic productions,
documents, letters and selected sculptures.
The
anthological itinerary departs from “Ritratto della madre”, dated 1921,
to proceed towards the classic themes of the artist, such as the Self-portraits,
“The Disturbing Muses”, “I bagni misteriosi”, “The Archaeologists”,
“Hector and Andromaca”, “I Consolatori”, “Cavalli e Cavalieri”, “Italian
Piazzas” d’Italia, “Cavalli sulla Spiaggia”, mannequins, metaphysical
sketches and still lives.
No
less beautiful is the fascinating exhibit of the unpublished designs
that trace the pictorial development of this great interpreter of metaphysical
art from the Novecento. Completing the show is a short run of sculptures
representing philosophers and mannequins, some autograph writings, unpublished
testimonials and a media diffusion of everything on display. This great
Italian artist was born in Volos, Greece in 1888 where his Italian family
had settled, and from this classic environment he sailed to Europe passing
through Paris and Munich before finally settling down upon the outbreak
of the First World War in 1915, between Ferrara, Rome and Florence.
He continued to travel and his definitive return to Italy took place
in 1931.
At
the Venice Biennale in 1948, an exhibit on the Metaphysical movement
was held where Carrà, Sironi and Morandi, among others, participated.
In 1970, a De Chirico show was put on at the Royal Palace in Milan,
and numerous exhibits have been shown in various cities throughout the
world, such as the memorable one displaying his Metaphysical period,
held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1955. De Chirico died
in Rome in 1978, but his death has triggered the historic review of
his entire artistic career that has turned the work of man upside down,
exalting thought, philosophy, and opening up new controversies.
The
ninety year old artist, who meditated on his metaphysical thought on
the pages of “Valori Plastici”, brings back the theme of the myth dear
to every man, a theme especially vital for a second Ulysses in search
of his lost homeland.
(traduzione
Interpres sas-Giussano)
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