The bizarre dreamscapes that inspired Surrealism
‘I paint what I see with my eyes closed’
Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) was the idol of the Surrealists. His invention of “metaphysical painting” in 1910 transfixed the coming generation of artists – including Dalí, Magritte, Ernst, Man Ray – who were intrigued by dreamlike imagery.
Although de Chirico’s career spanned 70 years, the paintings he produced during that decade would remain his most significant. Sadly, he seemed to agree with this view, since he would eternally create new versions of this body of pictures, and routinely backdate them. His reputation, and the market for his art, suffered terribly.
It also hurt his role as a torchbearer for the Surrealists when he eventually tired of being courted by them. He wanted to distance himself, and referred to them as “the leaders of modernistic imbecility”. This did not sit well with their spiritual mentor, the influential André Breton.
De Chirico’s extraordinary painting Gare Montparnasse – The Melancholy of Departure (1914) refers neither to a specific place, nor to a particular view. It is more reminiscent of a theatrical set, an imaginary backdrop for an event drawn from his imagination, and certainly not a familiar cityscape.
The overpowering olive-grey concrete building on the left of the composition has columns and arches partly suggesting the Parisian railway station, but it is juxtaposed with geometric planes and surfaces, its inconsistent perspective creating a sense of unease.
The plaza is empty except for murky shadows, which add to the oddly disturbing atmosphere. The viewer is unclear whether it is dawn or dusk. The clock face reads 1.27, further increasing the confusion.
In the distance, at one of several vanishing points in the picture, is the silhouette of a train, puffing away as it crosses the horizon. Under a yellowygreen sky, an exaggeratedly steep ramp seems to run from the train directly to the foreground; two tiny figures are standing far in the distance high on the ramp, with elongated shadows.
Somewhat bizarrely, at the bottom right corner of the painting, de Chirico has painted a bunch of bananas, inexplicably sitting on a surface of red bricks. They are disproportionately large, deliberately emphasising their peculiar inclusion in the picture.
Once exhibited, the painting reverberated across the art world like a clap of thunder. De Chirico tried to explain his work, stating: “I paint what I see with my eyes closed.”
Perhaps he was just feeling a little homesick. Although his parents were Italian, he was born and raised in Greece. Childhood memories of being an outsider, wandering in shadowy, empty town squares may have ingrained themselves on the young de Chirico. He grew up surrounded on all sides by looming buildings, with their menacing-looking gargoyles and mysterious statues staring downwards.
His first works were clearly inspired by the classical antiquities of Greece and Italy, with which he was fixated, and his philosophical studies of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer.
Paintings such as The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon (1910) depicted his early obsession with lonely, dramatically lit piazzas, punctuated by a single figure or monument. He was already utilising stark perspective shifts, and unsettling jumps in logic, while his frank, realistic way of painting allowed him to depict objects with great simplicity.
By the time he arrived in Paris, in 1911, he had perfected his new metaphysical approach, and found himself welcomed by the avant-garde artists there, including Picasso and Brâncuși.
His work was well received, in particular the enigmatic townsquare pictures such as Mystery and Melancholy of a Street (1914). The Parisian art world was struck by the eerie tension he had been able to create in this simple scene of solitary child playing with a hoop.
The strange artificiality of his cityscapes, with their severe, oppressive architecture; the sinister shadows that filled the type of streets you would encounter only in dreams and the inexplicable perspective idiosyncrasies he would employ in his compositions, had an unforgettable impact. De Chirico soon raised the stakes even higher by featuring increasingly illogical commonplace objects such as rubber household gloves, maps and fruit, alongside images of faceless mannequins.
The dissonant mood was an inspiration to a group of artists who were deeply involved in attempts to reflect the subconscious mind. They sensed that de Chirico’s work was opening doors – and were fascinated by the opportunity to experiment with the new theories of dream analysis and interpretation.
Surrealism was born from this single notion: that it was possible to instil hidden significance to quite ordinary places and objects. As de Chirico explained: “To become truly immortal, a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken it will enter the regions of childhood vision and dream.”
But de Chirico was instinctively more conservative than the thrusting new wave artists, and by the late Twenties he began to move away from his radical earlier work. He switched to a neo-traditional style that embraced Renaissance and Baroque roots. This, of course, alienated his supporters, and the critics who had formerly championed him.
He continued to explore his infatuation with Raphael and Titian and a renewed belief in the value of craftsmanship. He wanted greater detail in his new paintings, with richer colour and more accurate renditions of form and volume.
Almost immediately, his ties to the avant-garde were severed. His career was sidelined, his work regarded as inconsistent and generally ignored. When backdated versions of his earlier work infiltrated the market, his reputation was irretrievably ruined. And the Surrealists had not forgotten the barbs of his hurtful public snub.
However, the influence of his astonishing early works cannot be overlooked. The art world may not have forgiven his follies, but none the less these paintings remain a vital legacy. Their visceral look has been directly referenced over the decades, memorably in film director Michelangelo Antonioni’s enigmatic and desolate city scenes, and, more prosaically, on the packaging of Playstation video games.