It may seem a little strange to find a painting by Giorgio De Chirico in this website, since one of our aims is to share art from the 50s on, and De Chirico is considered to be more modern than contemporary nowadays. Very few know, though, that De Chirico continued painting until his death, in 1978. From 1968 he started working again on his initial metaphysical works (the works that got him inside the Surrealists’ group), conceiving the “neometaphysical” phase of his practice.
In the neometaphysical period, he looked back at his first metaphysical works and remade them with more irony and joy. In fact, if you see one of his previous works called La matinée angoissante, made in 1912, the mood is very dark, very melancholic, even the title is full of grieve and dark presages. The shadows on the floor are extremely dark and obscure, they could hide anything and you wouldn’t desire to be there. There is solitude, the absence of life of any kind is palpable.
In the new works there are almost no shadows, there is a lot of light, in the painting analyzed here the sun is the absolute protagonist and it brings life to the whole scene. This is a very noticeable example of how an artist can modify his approach to their art during their life.
Further interpretations are up to any observer, since it is in the purpose of surrealistic painting to provoke different reactions in the audience, touching their most profound selves.
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