The Last Myth of Giorgio de Chirico: Neurological Art

Abstract

Giorgio de Chirico is one of the most admired and at the same time most discredited painters of the 20th century. As the 'inventor' of metaphysical painting, he has been considered as a precursor of Surrealism, while his later works have been harshly criticized as representative of the painter's decay. The mystery and dream-like atmosphere irradiating from his works has led to speculations that de Chirico may have taken his inspiration from migraine attacks or complex partial seizures. However, a careful study of his life and his own writings suggests that while de Chirico probably suffered from recurrent malaria, he had neither migraines nor epilepsy. De Chirico also denied that dreams were a major source of his inspiration, but he insisted on his fertile inner imagery, which allowed him to put in a new, poetic, often conflictual perspective, places and objects, which he had actually seen (Hofgarten arcades, Italian piazzas, statues, antique ruins, etc.) in Athens, Munich, Florence, Turin, Ferrare, and other towns. De Chirico was accused of self-plagiarism because he commonly used his former themes in new works, sometimes in what may look like servile copies of his early paintings. This 'replay syndrome' is quite unique in modern art, which has been dominated by the obligation, dogma and cult of newness and renewal. At odds with most of his contemporaries, Andy Warhol suggested that de Chirico made such recurrent series because 'he liked it'. Indeed, as a lifelong admirer of Nietzsche, de Chirico may just have applied the philosopher's concept of the 'eternal return', in which one is supposed to live and accomplish tasks that one would want to repeat forever. In that way, de Chirico's work should not be considered as that of a genius who fell into decadence, but may appear as a continuous, organized process to which organic brain dysfunction never contributed.