Giorgio De Chirico (1888-1978) is surrealist born in Greece and moved to Italy to perform most of his artwork. The artwork that interested me is “The Evil Genius of a King” (1914-1915). His artwork carries a Geometric theme that attests to its modernistic era. As opposed to another artist within the same era, Giorgio De Chirico painting are not abstract but rather straightforward. He created paintings adding depth of dimension and allowing the artist to add more structures with full a wide range of vibrant colors.
What makes this art part of the Surrealism genre is how these objects do not tend to hold a truth in reality. Surrealism movement can be found predominantly in France and Italy. As we see in the picture above, the sphere is not rolling down the ramp. The laws of physics do not apply and that in itself shows a rejection of the world and its “laws” but somehow manifest itself in rather strange ways. Even if we can quantify what we see there is still much we do not understand and that is what Giorgio De Chirico intends to explain.
The paintings on display at the MOMA for Giorgio De Chirico attracted me because the object is definitive, organized, and colors do not overlap. There is this understanding of geometric angles and to a certain extent involving math. Being a Baruch undergrad who enjoys participating in mathematical situations, these painting offered a painter who recognized that the world is composed of definitive shapes. Compared to other paintings, Giorgio emphasizes on shadows of objects caused by a strong light source.
Giorgio De Chirico’s artwork has a room for itself on the 5th floor that blends in with all the different subcategories of Modernism. The most artwork has a strong geometric them that is vibrant when the lights hit it intended subject. His artwork can be stumbled upon next to the paintings of Picasso, Van Gogh, and Henri Rousseau. It seems to me that Giorgio De Chirico put clues in there and may carry certain significance. If so, where they to be interpreted and by who?