The Archaelogists, 1972, tempera on cardboard, 23 5/8 × 19 11/16 in.
©Foto Massimo Listri
The Archaelogists, 1969, gilded bronze, 16 17/32 × 9 1/4 × 12 13/64 in.
©Foto Massimo Listri
Giorgio de Chirico (Volos 1888 – Rome 1978)
He studied at Athens Polytechnic and in 1906 moved to Munich, where he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts. In March 1910, after a short stay in Milan, he moved to Florence. In Piazza Santa Croce, he had his first metaphysical revelations and painted L’énigme d’un après-midi d’automne (Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon), L’énigme de l’oracle (Enigma of the Oracle) and L’énigme de l’heure (Enigma of the Hour). In July 1911, he joined his brother Alberto (aka Savinio) in Paris. Here he worked on the theme of the Italian city squares, inspired by Turin’s architecture and Nietzsche’s philosophy. In March 1913, he exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants, where he was noticed by Picasso and Apollinaire. He started to work with the latter, with whom he established a lasting friendship. In 1914, he met his first dealer, Paul Guillaume. In 1915, he began the cycle of works characterized by mannequins, and in June of the same year presented himself to the military authorities in Florence and was sent to Ferrara, where he painted his first metaphysical interiors. He produced his best known works in 1917-18: Il grande metafisico (The Great Metaphysician), Ettore e Andromaca (Hector and Andromache), Il trovatore (The Troubadour) and Le muse inquietanti (The Disquieting Muses). He moved to Rome in January 1919 and shortly afterwards held his first solo show at Casa d’Arte Bragaglia. In museums he rediscovered the legacy of the great artists and began to make copies of the works of Italian Renaissance old masters, including Raphael and Michelangelo. In late 1925, he settled again in Paris. In 1929, he published Hebdomeros, le peintre et son génie chez l’écrivain, which enjoyed extraordinary success. This was followed by the illustration of Apollinaire’s Calligrammes and the enigmatic series of the Bagni misteriosi (Mysterious Baths). He left for New York in 1936 and returned to Italy in 1938. His so-called “Baroque period” began in the 1940s, inspired by the great masters, including Rubens. He worked on a series of terracotta sculptures and, in 1941, illustrated the Apocalypse of St. John. In 1946, he married his second wife, Isabella Pakszwer, who remained with him until his death. From the end of the 1960s, he took up metaphysical subjects to transpose them into joyful and colorful contexts, giving rise to Neometaphysics. His remains were laid to rest in the church of San Francesco a Ripa in Rome.
The Archaeologists were created by Giorgio de Chirico in the 1920s as a variation on the Mannequin; this variation became a trope of metaphysical art. The artist succeeded in creating a dreamlike image, evoking the memory of an archaeological and mythological world through “the mysterious meaning of dreams” (Castelfranco). The figure of the archaeologist, composed of a faceless head and a stomach full of ancient buildings, epitomizes the symbol of the vaticinator and the seer, the one who is able to see “beyond” because Mnemosyne, the mother of the Muses, has gifted him with a prophetic voice and superior sight, just as Homer, though blind, was able to sing the exploits of Greek heroes in the Iliad and the Odyssey. The bust contains a jumble of ruins, recalling ancient civilization, and natural elements such as tree crowns and waves. The archaeologists are the custodians of memory, they are tasked with bringing to light the traces of a distant past and reviving it in the present; similarly, their knowledge of the ancient allows them to read and interpret current events with new eyes, helping us to understand them. It is Nietzsche’s eternal return, in which past and future intersect in the simultaneity of the present. The choice of depicting these ancient figures, high-busted and short-legged, wearing peplos and comfortably seated in conversation, stems from the artist’s reflection on the majesty of Gothic sculptures. This further amplifies the lyrical and poetic quality of the figures and heightens the viewer’s sense of alienation and disorientation, which was already provoked, from the first glance, by placing the figures in a closed environment, using an accelerated perspective. In this version from 1972, color also contributes to the understanding of the enigma, this movement from the past to the present, when the thickness of black and white transforms into the light, soft, pale pink of the now. (Simonetta Antellini)