Metaphysical Painting
( 1910-1921 )

   Metaphysical Painting (ital. Pittura Metafisica) is an Italian art movement, born in 1917 with the work of Carlo Carrą and Giorgio de Chirico in Ferrara. The word metaphysical, adopted by De Chirico himself, is core to the poetics of the movement.

   They depicted a dreamlike imagery, with figures and objects seemingly frozen in time. Metaphysical Painting artists accept the representation of the visible world in a traditional perspective space, but the unusual arrangement of human beings as dummy-like models, objects in strange, illogical contexts, the unreal lights and colors, the unnatural static of still figures.

   Opposition to futurism, Metaphysical Painting brings no new way of painting but only a new way of seeing things. Using a sort of different logic, Carrą and De Chirico painted deserted squares, silent, rigidly rendered buildings, colonnades and shadows, trains passing faraway in the distance, clocks and statues. There is never any precise hint in the paintings about the place or moment of the scene. They are eventless, with a tome of silence, imminence and enigma. All that generated a new reality which goes beyond the meaning of the things presented, creating a sense of expectation and mystery and bonded with the unconscious mind.

   We can see Metaphysical Painting today as the reaction against both Cubism and Futurism during the period of Italian Fascism. It may seem strange that many of the achievements of 20th century Italian art came during that time. On the other side, Metaphysical Painting creates the premises of Surrealism.