GIORGIO DE CHIRICO
La Musa della Storia.

Color etching and aquatint, 1970. 390x277 mm; 15⅜x11 inches, full margins. Signed, titled and numbered 21/48 in pencil, lower margin. With the artist's blind stamp, lower left. Printed by Alberto Caprini, Rome, with the blind stamp lower right. A very good impression with strong colors.

Born in Volos, Greece, de Chirico moved to Italy with his family at the age of 10. As a teenager, he showed an early proclivity for art and in 1906 he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. In 1909, he traveled to Munich to continue his studies, and it was here that he encountered the work of the Swiss symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin, whose work had a profound influence on his own paintings.

Returning to Italy in 1910, de Chirico developed his signature style, painting empty city squares and deserted arcades, populated by enigmatic statues and mysterious shadows. He also began to explore the darker side of the human psyche, creating strange, dreamlike scenes that often contained elements of fear and dread. These early works by de Chirico are a foundation of the surrealist movement. In the 1920s, de Chirico's works became increasingly abstract, and he began to explore philosophical, metaphysical and existential themes. Later in life, he also experimented with a variety of different styles, though never diverging far from Surrealism. Brandani 9.