Giorgio de Chirico - The School of Gladiators

The iconography of this work is inspired by a conscious classicist quotation. The artistic language draws on classical antiquity, both Greek and Roman. This translates into an execution whose primary goal is mimesis, that is, the human need to imitate and reproduce nature and its surroundings. However, here we see a reworking by the master de Chirico, so that even the classical subject evokes a sense of alienation, in keeping with his metaphysical aesthetic.

Classicist quotation is a fundamental component of Giorgio de Chirico's aesthetic. Often, in keeping with the dictates of Metaphysical Art, classical or archaeological references are placed in an unusual context, creating an alienating effect. In this case, we find ourselves faced with a work in which the artist has imprinted his own trademark, namely the presence of an archaic element drawn from a gallery of images from the past. However, De Chirico disrupts the composition: the subjects, though plausible, are crowded together in an implausible space. The artist has constructed a rational spatial box, in which the movement of the figures is instead irrational. These contradictions underpin De Chirico's desire to create an enigmatic and alienating work.

Giorgio De Chirico, born in Volos, Greece, in 1888, died in Rome in 1978. He is the founder of Metaphysical painting. De Chirico reclaims images that already exist, familiar to the collective imagination. But he creates an effect of estrangement through the process of displacement—the sudden appearance of an object outside its usual context—or condensation, the fusion of multiple objects into a single entity. Metaphysical painting is also characterized by the illusory nature of its images.

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