Giorgio De Chirico. “Loreto” Manuscript, 1921

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GIOVANNI LORETO [GIORGIO DE CHIRICO] TRANSLATED BY ARA H. MERJIAN

Typed on three sheets of thin paper, this essay—written in French and bearing the simple title “Giorgio de Chirico”—arrived at the editorial offices of L’esprit nouveau on December 29, 1921. Signed “Giovanni Loreto,” the text has since been demonstrated to have been written by the eponymous artist himself, who made frequent use of pseudonyms in promoting his own work .1 Underscoring the architectonic sensibility of his Metaphysical painting and its consequence for the contemporary avant-garde, de Chirico appeals here to the affinities of the journal’s editors, Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant. His efforts were ultimately in vain however, as the essay was never published. It remains in the archive of the Fondation Corbusier. —Ara H. Merjian

Before undertaking to speak about this young painter on whom the atten - tive curiosity of Europe is already fixed, we hope the reader will oblige a brief excursus that, though seemingly unrelated to our subject, will serve better than any other means to convey the most profound sense of G. de Chirico’s art. The feeling for architecture is probably one of the first that men felt. The primitive dwellings wedged among mountains and nestled in the middle of ponds, undoubtedly awoke in our distant forbears a feeling of confusion— a feeling shot through with thousands of other sentiments, out of which issued over the course of centuries, what we have deemed the feeling for architecture. This feeling is profoundly rooted in man’s heart. And yet, until now, no painter has set about to express it directly, by means of an orderly and con - scious method. Whether in the works of ancient or modern painters, this feeling for architecture always appears as a supplement of greater or lesser importance. It is certain that the lyrical feeling of a landscape, a figure, a portrait, or even a simple still life gains solidity and profundity when one inserts architectural elements into it. Giorgio de Chirico has always been haunted by this feeling for architec - ture, by the solemn and lyrical feeling that plazas, towers, porches, and all the constructions that form a city betray when architectural genius—and, often, mere chance (divine chance, as Nietzsche calls it)—disposes them in a

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00046 by guest on 25 September 2021 certain way . In his entire output from 1910 to 1914, de Chirico consistently conveys to us the mystery of cities, the calm and the meditativeness of Italian architecture in the evening hours, or when a canon’s blast announces to men that it is midday. He was the first Italian painter to have truly under - stood the profundity of certain of his coun - try’s cities; and it was truly remarkable to see how, in the middle of Paris, this young painter—indifferent to the solicitations of various artistic schools and fashions, of different schools and innumerable tenden - cies—pursued his ideals with the chastity of an ancient painter. Those unfamiliar with de Chirico’s painting from this period might consider him a naïve, mystical, or [overly] contemplative painter. Far from naïve, or from wishing to seem naïve through the cultivation of some style or another, de Chirico is a con - summately conscious painter. His entire effort tends to express itself with a scrupulous sincerity, approaching, by means of slow and painstaking labor, the ranks of master painting. Following this period that we might call “architectural,” de Chirico produced a great number of strange compositions that owed very little to modern art, compositions full of spirit and profundity and subtended by a quite sincere lyrical sentiment. Under skies of tenebrous blue he revealed to us figures isolated or in groups, great mannequins of strange articulation that rose up with the pathos and religious solemnity of warriors painted by Paolo Uccello. He showed us strange still lifes in the rectilinear solitude of mysterious rooms, in which insignificant objects reared up with the trou - bling solemnity of idols placed in deserted sanctuaries. This entire body of painting, which the artist himself deemed meta - physical , influenced numerous artists, even as de Chirico—that indefatiga - ble seeker—pursued entirely new kinds of work.

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After the war, and especially these last few years, de Chirico has resided in Florence, the home of the Quattrocento . It is this century that he considers the most pure, the most profound in all of Italian painting. With intelligence and devotion he has studied in museums, churches, and cloisters, occa - sionally copying works by the Old Masters, examining them closely so as to

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00046 by guest on 25 September 2021 Opposite and right: Giorgio de Chirico. “Loreto” manuscript, 1921. © 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ SIAE, Rome.

divine their secrets. Profoundly influenced by this great past, de Chirico’s oeuvre perfected itself as much with regards to craft as to inspi - ration. His painting cleansed itself, gained in radiance and solidity. Abandoning ancient subject matter little by little, de Chirico today assiduously studies the human figure, of which he has composed a series of admirable portraits. Throughout this oeuvre one finds the same scrupulous sincerity striving to express itself, the same restless need to grasp the mystery of nature and the human being. It is with scruples extremely rare for our age that de Chirico has renounced commercially sold colors, varnishes, and oils. With the patience of an ancient grinder [broyeur ], he himself prepares his own colors, even fashioning his own canvases, plates, and varnishes. He believes—insisting especially upon this point—that the use of mineral and vegetable oils has contributed to the decadence of painting. He also always uses different kinds of tempera (colors mixed with animal glue, egg yolk, casein, honey, etc.), and to colors he adds resin. He uses oil only as a supplement, and only as a last resort, and often he does not even use it at all. In this way he hopes to achieve a more perfect craft. The slow and interesting evolution of G. de Chirico proves, in a rather striking manner, that the hopes placed in his work since the time when he lived in Paris were well founded. To the alluring seduction of his earliest works, he has added the sureness of craft, a profundity that very few have attained among the moderns.

Notes 1. See Ara H. Merjian, “A Lost Manuscript on (and by?) de Chirico: Origins, Authorship, Implications,” Metafisica: Journal of the Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico 5–6 (2006): 386 –403.

Loreto | Giorgio de Chirico 89

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