Giorgio de Chirico

Private Collection, Turin
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Francavilla al Mare, Museo Michetti, Palazzo San Domenico, La famiglia de Chirico. I geni della pittura, 2006, no. 12, illustrated in the catalogue
Castelbasso, Borgo Medievale, Giorgio de Chirico. Mito e mistero, 2008, no. 63, illustrated in the catalogue

The canvas is unlined. Apart from some spots of retouching at the top and bottom framing edges, visible under ultra-violet light, this work is in good condition. Colours: In comparison with the printed catalogue illustration, the colours are overall fairly accurate, although fresher in the original.
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Representing one of the most iconic images of De Chirico's art, Piazza d'Italia depicts an enigmatic, desolate urban setting, its eerie quality characteristic of his metaphysical paintings. His depictions of Italian city squares, which remained the leitmotif of his art throughout his career, are conspicuously devoid of human presence. In this composition, two male figures are seen towards the background, but with their bodies oddly scaled-down in comparison to the architecture and to the large statue, the painting retains the majestically quiet, enigmatic mood and timeless quality. The centre of the square is occupied by the statue of a man, seen from the back and casting a long, dramatic shadow. According to James Thrall Soby, this frock-coated figure was most probably inspired by the statue of the philosopher Giovanni Battista Bottero, situated in Largo Quattro Marzo in Turin (J. T. Soby, Giorgio de Chirico, New York, 1955, p. 70). The artist was fascinated with the city's famous arcades, which form the main lines of perspective in the present composition, as well as with its large, melancholic squares usually occupied by statues or equestrian monuments.

 

Quoting the artist's own writing, James Thrall Soby explained how this general premise of melancholy, central to De Chirico's metaphysical paintings, was derived from the writing of Friedrich Nietzsche: 'As to the derivation of the Italian squares or 'memories of Italy,' the artist gives due credit to Nietzsche by describing in his autobiography what seems to him to have been the German philosopher's most remarkable innovation: 'This innovation is a strange and profound poetry, infinitely mysterious and solitary, based on Stimmung (which might be translated ... as atmosphere), based, I say, on the Stimmung of an autumn afternoon when the weather is clear and the shadows are longer than in summer, for the sun is beginning to be lower.' [...] There is no reason to doubt that Nietzsche's prose played a key part in stimulating the painter's interest in creating a poetic reconstruction of the dream-lit piazzas of Italy' (ibid., pp. 27-28).

 

 

Odoardo Tabacchi, Monument to Giovanni Battista Bottero, 1899, Turin