de Chirico, Giorgio. (1888-1978). Testa di cavallo, 1969.
Etching on wove paper, 20-1/4 x 16-1/8 inches (51.4 x 41 cm) (sight). Ed. 6/60. Signed and numbered in pencil along lower edge. Mild scattered handling creases, most notably to the right margin. Not examined out of frame. Matted and framed under acrylic. Framed Dimensions 35 x 35 inches.
Acting as the archetype which underpinned his varied formal developments, de Chirico would continue to develop the motif of the horse throughout his career. In his 1939 novel Un'Avventura di Monsieur Durdron, the artist describes how the theme of horses allowed him to strive for pictorial quality without being concerned by pictorial innovation. Evolving from tranquil, sculptural beasts, they were later invested with vitality and acquired grandiose flourishes in accordance with his neo-baroque idiom of the 1940s and '50s.
What remained was de Chirico's persistent association of the horse with mythology. A text from 1913, at the beginning of his career, directly makes this association: 'I still think of the enigma of the horse, in the sense of the marine god: once I envisioned it in the gloom of a temple that rose above the sea; the speaking messenger and the seer that the sea god has given to the king of Argos. I imagined it made of cut marble as white and pure as a diamond. It crouched like a sphinx on its haunches and in the movement of its white neck were to be found enigma and infinite nostalgia of the deep' (G. de Chirico quoted in J. de Sanna (ed.), op. cit., p. 246). Thus, while de Chirico's post-metaphysical period tended to reference the classical world and Greek mythology in a more direct way – the motif of the horse still looked back to de Chirico's metaphysical journey, namely the quest for the deeper meaning behind the immediate appearance of things.
What remained was de Chirico's persistent association of the horse with mythology. A text from 1913, at the beginning of his career, directly makes this association: 'I still think of the enigma of the horse, in the sense of the marine god: once I envisioned it in the gloom of a temple that rose above the sea; the speaking messenger and the seer that the sea god has given to the king of Argos. I imagined it made of cut marble as white and pure as a diamond. It crouched like a sphinx on its haunches and in the movement of its white neck were to be found enigma and infinite nostalgia of the deep' (G. de Chirico quoted in J. de Sanna (ed.), op. cit., p. 246). Thus, while de Chirico's post-metaphysical period tended to reference the classical world and Greek mythology in a more direct way – the motif of the horse still looked back to de Chirico's metaphysical journey, namely the quest for the deeper meaning behind the immediate appearance of things.
de Chirico, Giorgio. (1888-1978). Testa di cavallo, 1969.
Etching on wove paper, 20-1/4 x 16-1/8 inches (51.4 x 41 cm) (sight). Ed. 6/60. Signed and numbered in pencil along lower edge. Mild scattered handling creases, most notably to the right margin. Not examined out of frame. Matted and framed under acrylic. Framed Dimensions 35 x 35 inches.
Acting as the archetype which underpinned his varied formal developments, de Chirico would continue to develop the motif of the horse throughout his career. In his 1939 novel Un'Avventura di Monsieur Durdron, the artist describes how the theme of horses allowed him to strive for pictorial quality without being concerned by pictorial innovation. Evolving from tranquil, sculptural beasts, they were later invested with vitality and acquired grandiose flourishes in accordance with his neo-baroque idiom of the 1940s and '50s.
What remained was de Chirico's persistent association of the horse with mythology. A text from 1913, at the beginning of his career, directly makes this association: 'I still think of the enigma of the horse, in the sense of the marine god: once I envisioned it in the gloom of a temple that rose above the sea; the speaking messenger and the seer that the sea god has given to the king of Argos. I imagined it made of cut marble as white and pure as a diamond. It crouched like a sphinx on its haunches and in the movement of its white neck were to be found enigma and infinite nostalgia of the deep' (G. de Chirico quoted in J. de Sanna (ed.), op. cit., p. 246). Thus, while de Chirico's post-metaphysical period tended to reference the classical world and Greek mythology in a more direct way – the motif of the horse still looked back to de Chirico's metaphysical journey, namely the quest for the deeper meaning behind the immediate appearance of things.
What remained was de Chirico's persistent association of the horse with mythology. A text from 1913, at the beginning of his career, directly makes this association: 'I still think of the enigma of the horse, in the sense of the marine god: once I envisioned it in the gloom of a temple that rose above the sea; the speaking messenger and the seer that the sea god has given to the king of Argos. I imagined it made of cut marble as white and pure as a diamond. It crouched like a sphinx on its haunches and in the movement of its white neck were to be found enigma and infinite nostalgia of the deep' (G. de Chirico quoted in J. de Sanna (ed.), op. cit., p. 246). Thus, while de Chirico's post-metaphysical period tended to reference the classical world and Greek mythology in a more direct way – the motif of the horse still looked back to de Chirico's metaphysical journey, namely the quest for the deeper meaning behind the immediate appearance of things.