PORTFOLIO

Giorgio de Chirico is one of the most enigmatic artists of the 20th century – and at the same time one of its most profoundly misunderstood. To this day, he is primarily regarded as a precursor of Surrealism, the creator of those dreamlike, deserted piazzas with their long shadows, mysterious figures and trains in the distance. Yet this famous metaphysical period tells only part of his story.

From the late 1910s onwards, de Chirico underwent a radical transformation. He turned towards classical craftsmanship and the Old Masters, painting suits of armour, mythological horses, figures from antiquity and billowing curtains. For this, he was fiercely criticised by his former admirers – above all the Surrealists – and eventually all but ostracised.

Our film tells the story of this other de Chirico: the anachronist, self-inventor and uncompromising maverick who refused to be confined to the style that had made him famous. At its heart are the still less explored decades of the 1920s and beyond, when de Chirico deliberately broke with the expectations of the avant-garde and began to reinvent himself and his art.