Giorgio Chirco contra Giorgio Chirico

Giorgio De Chirico was once, for a short period of his life, an absolutely amazing pre-surreal painter. One of the pioneers of the magical, dreamy and captivating world of imagination in his highly original paintings. His work was very different, and unique for the time in which he created it. Even today if you are in the Tate Modern, or in other museums which have De Chirico's paintings in their collections, you will always immediately recognize his paintings but only those from the 'surreal period'. Even Breton loved him and admired him. This in itself was already a miracle, because as both rumours and facts tell us Breton was a real tyrant and he didn't like anybody. In Paris from 1911 to the outbreak of war De Chirico developed his 'Metaphysical painting': a self consciously enigmatic type of picture clearly inviting Freudian forms of interpretation. As he expressed himself in written text somewhere between 1911 and 1915:

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. Profound statement must be drawn by the artist form the most secret recesses of his being; there no murmuring torrent, no birdsong, no rustle of leaves can distract him.

A few year later De Chirico deserted the new movement, actually all the avant-garde of his time, and become obsessed with the old masters, with the technical methods especially of earlier Italian painters. He abandoned his metaphysical - surreal - enigmatic style and became a classical painter. In his own words, written in 1919:

The neglect of anthropomorphic representation, and the deformation of it, encouraged entire legion of painters to turn out stupid and facile reproductions. With its return the problem of animal-man looms larger and more terrible than ever, since, this time, the right weapons to confront it are lacking, or rather they are in existence, but they are blunt, and many have forgotten how to use them. ...... To return to the craft! This will not be easy and will demand time and toil. The schools and the masters are deficient, or rather they are vilified by the colouristic riot that has invaded Europe in this half-century. The academies exist, full of methods and systems, but, alas, what results they produce! What on earth would the weakest student of 1600 say if he could see a masterpiece by a professore of an Italian academy, or by a cher maǐtre of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Paris?

Back to the old De Chirico from the Metaphysical paintings:

It is most important that we should rid art of all that is has contained or recognizable material to date, all familiar subject-matter, all traditional ideas, all popular symbols must be banished forthwith. More important still we must hold enormous faith in ourselves: it is essential that the revelation we receive, the conception of an image which embraces a certain thing, which has no sense in itself, which has no subject, which means absolutely nothing from the logical point of view (... ) should speak so strongly to us, evoke such agony or joy, that we feel compelled to paint...

What a contrast and contradiction to his ideas from a few years later:

This is the point we have reached. This is the state of confusion, ignorance and overwhelming stupidity in the midst of which the very few painters whose brains are clear and whose eyes are clean are preparing to return to pictorial science following the principles and teaching of our old masters. Their first lesson was drawing, drawing, the divine art, the foundation of every plastic construction, skeleton of every good work, eternal law that every artifice must follow. Drawing, ignored, neglected and deformed by all modern painters....

Somehow after the First World War De Chirico returned to tradition and mastery. He summed it nicely:

I am calm, and I decorate myself with three words that I wish to be the seal of all my work: Pictor classicus sum.*

Everyone can change and everyone has the right to do so. Unfortunately in the case of De Chirico his decision to reject his enigmatic style of painting, from the point of view of art history, wasn't such a good decision. Nobody really is interested in his work from the neo-classicism period. De Chirico wasn't really consequent in abandoning his most successful style, soon after 1920 he begun faking his own early work.

 In 1926 he created a work which now belongs to the Tate Modern collection entitled 'The Painter's Family'.

'The Painter's Family' by De Chirico - 1926

The painting was made in the 'metaphysical' style. He only did it for money, probably. But the work misses the enigmatic, the melancholic and the somehow depressive aspects of his early work. The Tate Modern owns two more paintings: the first 'The Uncertainty of Poet' is from 1913 and the second 'The Melancholy of Departure' from 1916.

 'The Uncertainty of Poet' by De Chirico 1913

'The Melancholy of Departure' by De Chirico 1916

* I am a classical painter


Another post about De Chirico:
Enigmatic poet of nostalgia - De Chirico

Salvador Dali and his nymphomaniac wife .

According to a short editorial in New Scientist (2 February 2013) Salvador Dali had a very unorthodox albeit very simple method of mental refreshment.

He would sit with a key in one hand, poised above a metal plate placed on the floor, and let sleep take him. As soon as he began to slumber in earnest, the key would slip from his fingers and clang against the plate - waking him immediately.

Dali declared that this method provided all the rest he needed before getting on with a new painting . It seems to me that he probably was in the stage 2 of his sleep. Because this is the perfect stage for naps. Lasting 20 minutes or so, it restores fatigued muscles and replenishes alertness. Confirm the science of sleep if you are awakened during this stage, you will feel refreshed and happy. But it is very impossible that you will have dreams during this stage. The majority of dreams happens after the stage 4 of deep sleep in REM stage. I often put down my dreams on paper, in writing or drawings. I memorise and repeat them time after time to prevent them escaping from my unconscious memory before they are printed in my conscious memory. Of course I only bother with the most unusual, impossible, shocking or surreal dreams. The content of Dali's paintings has probably nothing to do with his dreams, in contradiction to the widely repeated truisms:

'What inspired Salvador Dali? - his dreams and his wife'.

The first answer is a nonsensical one, the second is a true one. His wife Gala was not only a huge inspiration for his paintings but also a gigantic, dominating force behind his productions, his popularity and his ultimate fate as a fallen genius. Think about it: Dali was a master painter, with his absolutely amazing, conscientious techniques; with his vulnerability behind his moustache; with his genuine spirituality; with his homosexual inclinations; without his wife, without Gala!

I can imagine all the great paintings he would have made were it not for the devil woman - His wife. Maybe he would have only been discovered posthumously  but for the greatness of his art, and art in general, who cares about that? Dali as a brilliant genius and as a serious artist existed between 1929 and 1939. Full stop. After that period Dali's commercial success, huge as it was, coincided with his decline as a serious artist. Full stop!

Here are some of his best paintings. I didn't include his best painting 'The Persistence of Memory' from 1931 only because I couldn't find a good image of it on WWW. I do have a few books included this painting but they are too big for my scanner.

Sorry for that. You can find a good image of this painting at Wikpedia.

Another excellent work is the Morphological Echo - consisting of two oil on panel paintings made between 1934 and 1936. Hereby the two images:

Lugubrious Game - 1929

 

Surreal and beautiful – from Tuskany

I spent my last birthday in Tuscany. It was the perfect environment for my spirit and my turbulent brain which has lost confidence and hope in contemporary art. After seeing all the amazing mediaeval art in the Uffizi in Florence and in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Siena I came to a conclusion that can be seen as a controversial one. My conclusion is that contemporary art has lost connection to beauty and the sacred. Another very important aspect is the craftsmanship. A huge percentage of contemporary art colleges' students can’t draw or paint. They are missing the talent and the techniques. The only thing that they are able to do is to express their own ideas or feelings. There is no beauty and the sacred element is missing. On the other hand art is an act of expression, so perhaps I am wrong. Maybe contemporary art is the expression of contemporary people/artists who have lost any connection with the beautiful and the sacred?! Mass culture, popular culture, deception, profit and popularity. The flow of information is so overwhelming - we don't have time for deep study or reflection. It is about sloppiness and dullness. That is a good characterisation of XXI century art: asexual and shallow. Sometimes I think that one of the last bastions of excellent technique, beauty and the sacred are the surreal artists, and of course the practitioners of traditional fine art, too. 

While in Tuscany we did of course visit San Gimignano. What an enchanted and magical place. One of the museums that we went to was the Museum Archeologico and Spezieria Di Santa Fina. The Museo Archeologico is a relatively new attraction in San Gimignano and home to an array of artefacts from the town's past. The Spezieria di Santa Fina - Apothecary of Santa Fina - includes a reconstruction of a pharmacy from the 16th century and is filled with fragrant herbs and spices. There is also a planted herb garden and an additional modern art gallery. In that gallery I found two (actually more) very interesting surreal paintings. The first is entitled 'La Finestra Sull'Arno' from 2011 by Renzo Galardini. According Google translate La Finestra Sull'Arno means 'The window on the Arno'. I think the better translation is 'The window over the Arno'. (The Arno is a river in the Tuscany/Florence. It is the most important river of central Italy after the Tiber). I had never heard about this artist before. Thanks to the wonders of the World Wide Web and the internet I found some information about him.

Renzo Galardini was born in Pisa, January 14, 1946, and now lives in Cecina near there today in a restored 15th century building. He studied at the Art Institute of Lucca, graduating in 1962. He accepted a teaching position there, and at the same time, he studied scenography at the Fine Art Academy in Florence. During these years, he conducted research and restoration of medieval ceramics. Galardini's work as an artist encompasses oil paintings, ceramics and graphics. The Italian masters influence his painting technique. He applies oil pigments meticulously, harmonizing the colours, creating works of great elegance. Having earned privileged access to Tuscan museums and archival collections, Galardini often incorporates images of ancient armaments, clothing, tools, weaponry and special implements in his works. The richness of his execution and the depiction of his unique subjects in their highly theatrical settings create his unique and highly identifiable style. His graphic work, considered by various critics to be the best in today's Italy, is featured in a number of international publications and in a recent monograph by Nicola Miceli - Renzo Galardini: Incisioni.

I think what really attracted me to this painting was the richness of the subjects, the colours, the excellent technique and the great elegance. An absolutely fabulous painting with a hint of the surreal about it. I also see in it associations with and reminiscences from the late mediaeval/ early renaissance. I do see also a hint of Breughel the Elder. It is a very captivating image; there are so many questions and so few answers. Who are the bizarre soldiers climbing and struggling by the bridge? Who is this weird fat, naked creature sitting on the edge of the parapet or platform? Is this Florence? What about the puppet without a head and the rocking horse? 

Here is the image, see for yourself:

La Finestra Sull'Arno' from 2011 by Renzo Galardini.

La Finestra Sull'Arno' from 2011 by Renzo Galardini-detail

The second painting is more in the style of the German artists: Otto Dix and George Grosz. The work's title is almost unreadable, but seems to say 'La statuaire'. I hope that the name of the artist is correct - Stefano Cacchi. Maybe not. My photo of the text is really poor, but it is my fault. I should check the quality of the image immediately after taking it. Here is the image. Isn't it wonderful? The flying protectives, the French president (De Gaulle?), the mad cartoon like bunnies alias political puppets, the British Queen, the unstable world political arena and the fire of war. I really love it.