Art Sunday; Giorgio de ChiricoThis has been a very ‘surreal’ week for me, rain, rain, and more rain, intermittent with days that are hot, humid and overcast.
With utter disregard to the weather the grandchildren spend their days out playing and reappear when hungry. They’ve made friends with the local children, oh if only life remained that simple.
My decorating is progressing nicely; I’ve come to a stop now until I persuade someone to take a cupboard door off for me. Most things I tackle myself but this door is beyond me, the hinges are welded into place with 50+ years worth of paint and I need the door off before I can sort out the door frame and then paper around the door. 
Apart from this ‘cupboard door’ area and the middle bit of the ceiling, the room is finished, I just need to reassemble it and find some suitable curtains. 
I’m not always that taken with surrealist work, but this I like. I like the rich earthy colours, the ambers and reds, the deep yellows and the hint of sunlight. I also like the architectural subject matter, these surreal street scenes devoid of people appeal to me.
Although; I’m not sure if they appeal to me because I’m a bit obsessive about architecture, or because I like the lack of people. Giorgio de Chirico
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Giorgio de Chirico July 10, 1888 – November 20, 1978) was a Greek-born Italian artist. In the years before World War I, he founded the scuola metafisica art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. After 1919 he became interested in traditional painting techniques, and worked in a neoclassical or neo-Baroque style, while frequently revisiting the metaphysical themes of his earlier work.
Read more on Giorgio de Chirico from wikipeadia here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgio_de_Chirico
Biography of Giorgio De Chirico
Giorgio De Chirico was born on 10th July 1888 in Volos, the capital of Thessaly (Greece). His father Evaristo was an engineer and his mother, Gemma Cervetto, a noblewoman of Genoese origin. Two years later in Athens, his brother Andrea was born. Andrea adopted the pseudonym of Alberto Savinio in his work as a writer and musician.During this time Giorgio, whose father always supported his passion for art, took his first drawing lessons with the Greek painter Mavrudis. And it was in Athens that De Chirico realized his first painting, entitled "Still Life with Lemons (Natura morta con limoni)". In 1906, following the death of his father, the De Chirico family moved to Germany where Giorgio attended the Academy of Fine Arts and came into contact with German artistic, literary and philosophical culture.
He read Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Weininger, continued studying the Ancients and studied the art of Arnold Böcklin.
Read more of the biography here
http://www.italica.rai.it/eng/principal/topics/bio/dechirico.htm
I found this a lovely description of his work;
Melancholy and Mystery of a Street, 1914
'Here a desolate street has been captured bathed in that particular kind of afternoon sun in Autumn when all appears as if in limbo. It is not yet sunset, but it is clear the day will soon end. Long shadows accentuate every texture and movement. The ethereal light seems almost tangible, giving the world the appearance of a dream, and in the dark shadows night has already come.
In this eerie space something profound has or will take place, but we are not privy to that scene. This is an empty stage. We are shown the street soon after or just before an unseen dramatic event. The threatening shadow of a statue, out of sight, draws towards it a girl - also appearing as little more than an emanation. The box on wheels, with its shadowy interior, seems to indicate entrapment, further emphasising the sense of impending tragedy.
The imposing facade of a dark building dominates the foreground while an extended white wall on the left gives the illusion of depth, an exaggerated perspective foreshortening the vanishing point, creating an ominous sense of unreality, of sur-reality through spacial distortion. Each arch seems as if an eye, silently staring into the claustrophobic space. As De Chirico explains visiting Versailles, "Everything gazed at me with mysterious, questioning eyes. And then I realised that every corner of the palace, every column, every window possessed a spirit, an impenetrable soul."
In this unsettling, haunting work, Giorgio De Chirico, a founder of the Pittura Metafisica (Metaphysical Painting) style, a forerunner to Surrealism, presents the very concept of the street as it being dense in history and in possibility, in melancholy and in mystery. Any banal empty street, in this light, could be seen as sinister and yet disturbingly beautiful.
Overall, I think I like this work, and even if I didn't, anyone who reads ( and understands ) Schopenauer, Nietzsche has to be admired.
