Giorgio de Chirico was born in 1888 in Greece. He drew this painting in 1914. The painting was named “The Song of Love”. In the first sight, we can see the Greek statue in white, the red glove and a green ball. When I look closely, I can find the city far away from the wall in the darkness. The dark blue sky makes me feel anxiety .Through the description of this painting, there is a train shrouded near the red glove. The unrelated objects and the difference of the color makes the painting be deeply impressed for me and let me have a lots of questions.
This painting is expressionism. Expressionist works by the artist focuses on the performance of inner feelings , but neglected to describe the object in the form of facsimile , so often manifested as distortions of reality and abstraction of this approach in particular to express feelings of fear. In this painting, the unrelated objects makes the whole painting look wired. The blue sky and the dark train shrouded shows the atmosphere of anxiety. I feel like the artist is fear about something. And in the Greece, the statue is stand for the freedom and democracy. But the green ball and red glove makes us think whats the relation between them. I can easily remember the painting and feel the complicated mood of the artist, the fear and pursuit for freedom.
After the searching, the artist finished the painting in world war I. In that period, people were scared about the ward and the death. The artist wants to use the unrelated objects to show the messed up society or the panic of the world. The artist hates the war.
Actually the Greek statue catches my sight. The unbalance of the painting gives me the good impression.
For this painting, I wonder that does artist question the democracy of the whole world?
Thank you for reminder me! I already re-wrote it.
Xin, I agree that this painting by Di Chirico is mysterious and compelling. Your interpretation of the painting as containing some kind of commentary about democracy is really interesting. It certainly seems to be referencing both the classical and the modern (I’m not sure whether the shape in the background is a train or a city or a factory!) Di Chirico was an Italian artist, not a Greek one. I was interested in your observation that the dominant emotion of the painting is ANXIETY. Perhaps Di Chirico’s use of scale (Look at how big the bust is!) contributes to that. It also seems to me to have a bit of dream-like or surreal quality.
I like your explanation, without you explained that, I wouldn’t understand this painting. I thinks this painting first looks simple, and everything looks like is unrelated. But, I could feel the emotion that artist conveys to the audience wouldn’t be joyous or something optimistice. Thanks your expalnation otherwise I wouldn’t understand this piece of art.