There’s nothing empty inside me.
I am filled with melancholy… and mystery.
Dechirico
As the shadows of dusk creep in,
a fake life comes to know love
A mannequin-like Muse who stirred up scandal as a Dadaist artist. She wanders awkwardly through the corners of the city, lost in gloomy thoughts. Deeply critical of her own work, she’s the dangerous type who tries to destroy it whenever she finds it.
Style
DadaismeHometown
Greece
Classics
- "Melancholy and Mystery of a Street"
- "Hector and Andromache"
- "The Song of Love" etc.
This is the Dechirico piece!
Melancholy and Mystery of a Street
The long shadows cast by the slanting sun and the city walls stretching toward scattered vanishing points. Someone is lurking at the end of the street, yet their figure remains unseen. Most elements in the composition exude a sense of gloom, yet amidst this, the girl alone floats divinely toward the light, spinning a hoop. Around this time, De Chirico was painting fantastical landscapes of modern cities, drawing inspiration from philosophical concepts such as the eternal recurrence proposed by Nietzsche.
This painting appeared in the anime Lupin III: The Mystery of Mamo, and its imagery of streets and long stretching shadows also influenced the cover art of the game ICO. Was it really that... mysterious, I wonder?
Year
1914
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimension
87cm x 73cm
Collection
Private collection
Who is Dechirico?
Giorgio de Chirico
A painter born in Greece who traveled across Europe and found success in many countries. He painted deserted plazas, long stretching shadows, and eerie mannequins, creating his own world of ‘Metaphysical Painting,’ filled with anxiety and mystery. His dreamlike style strongly influenced the Surrealists, and he is sometimes discussed alongside Dadaist artists as well. In his later years, driven by intense self-criticism, this stubborn old eccentric went so far as to claim that the works displayed in museums were forgeries and even produced copies of his own earlier paintings himself.
Full Name
Giuseppe Maria Alberto Giorgio de Chirico
Born
July 10, 1888
Died
November 20, 1978(aged 90)