Giorgio de Chirico - Some notes

The term "metaphysical" represented to de Chirico a search for the essential meaning hidden behind the surface of objects. He believed that objects acquire various meanings when imbued with the memory of their viewer. If that which de Chirico called the "chain of memories" is broken, the objects acquire a new and disquieting guise, "a ghostly and metaphysical aspect that only a few individuals can see in moments of clairvoyance and metaphysical abstraction. The architecture of Turin and Ferrara, with their solemn porticoed streets and wide piazzas was for de Chirico the most appropriate setting for these images - locomotive trains, statues, silhouettes - which are frozen and outside the flow of time. The depth of perspective in these vistas is often fictitious, and the canvases often contain contradictions that subtly underscore the sensation of estrangement and anguish that fascinated the Surrealists. De Chirico confined himself to this repertoire between about 1912 and 1919. Thtroughout his career he returned intermittently to these Metaphysical themes which, while they identify him as a painter for art historians, still do not exhause the range of his oeuvre.

Could be from here or here

The warm colors and familiar icons in the paintings of Giorgio de Chirico are deceptively soothing. The varying lines of perspective, blurring of indoor and outdoor space, and the coupling of ancient images with turn-of-the-century industry are both vaguely familiar and certainly disconcerting, evocative of being lost in a city or wandering through a stranger's home. Vacant plazas, shadowy arcades, and lonely statues are the eerie edges of dreams that are lost in the morning. Even de Chirico's most standard still lifes are ambient and consuming.

Swallowing a tidbit
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This post is part of an art assignment to research a painting,document this research and produce an interpretation of said painting. Such is the power of the internet and the immediate quality of blogging.