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拍品专文
In the present work, two faceless figures sit side by side on a classic divan, a drape falling off the neck of one to lay across both of their knees. The duo is probably Orestes and Pylades, known in Greek mythology for their strong friendship with insinuations of homoerotic love, two figures that De Chirico frequently returned to in his practice. During the 1920s, the artist began depicting Orestes and Pylades in the manner they are seen in Archeologi. The architectural elements that previously surrounded his figures began to fuse with the figures themselves. Initially interpreted as a reverence of classicism to move away from his Surrealist contemporaries, De Chirico’s obsession with antiquity is rather a product of his metaphysical period.
The temples, aqueducts, and Roman walls in Archeologi are an ode to De Chirico’s Greek-Italian heritage, one that he approaches with the philosophical groundwork of metaphysics that the artist adopted in his formative years, studying the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. De Chirico wrote that through Nietzsche, “[he] became aware that there is a host of strange, unknown, solitary things which can be translated into painting” (“Eluard Manuscript,” Hebdomeros, London, 1968, p. 185). Inspired by Nietzsche’s interrelated genealogies of body and vision, Archeologi embodies this metaphysical unknown as the liminal space between the familiar and the absurd. The figures are seen in a friendly embrace, interrupted by elements of classical antiquity.
A drawing from 1926 in a private collection and a 1927 painting of the work currently at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome are the preliminary sketches of Archeologi (G. dalla Chiesa, De Chirico Scultore, 1988, p. 66). Unlike these two-dimensional works, however, Archeologi embodies Nietzsche’s metaphysics in its materiality. As De Chirico declared in his “Brevis Pro Plastica Oratio,” published in 1940 in Aria d’Italia, unlike the painter, the sculptor was a proxy of his material, given the task of revealing to his audience what was “already sleeping inside” of his clay (“Brevis Pro Plastica Oratio,” Bolaffi Catalogo della sculptura italiana, no. 5, 1981, p. 56). What De Chirico reveals in Archeologi is what Nietzche terms the “spacing of time” (T. Mical, “A Fragmentary Writing: the (Convulsive) Enigma of Eternal Recurrence in De Chirico’s 'Architecture,'” Ph.D. Diss., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1998, p. 169), between modernity and antiquity, between timeless faceless figures and classical architectural elements.
Archeologi was cast as part of an edition of 7 bronzes cast circa 1988 to celebrate the centenary of De Chirico's birth.
The temples, aqueducts, and Roman walls in Archeologi are an ode to De Chirico’s Greek-Italian heritage, one that he approaches with the philosophical groundwork of metaphysics that the artist adopted in his formative years, studying the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. De Chirico wrote that through Nietzsche, “[he] became aware that there is a host of strange, unknown, solitary things which can be translated into painting” (“Eluard Manuscript,” Hebdomeros, London, 1968, p. 185). Inspired by Nietzsche’s interrelated genealogies of body and vision, Archeologi embodies this metaphysical unknown as the liminal space between the familiar and the absurd. The figures are seen in a friendly embrace, interrupted by elements of classical antiquity.
A drawing from 1926 in a private collection and a 1927 painting of the work currently at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome are the preliminary sketches of Archeologi (G. dalla Chiesa, De Chirico Scultore, 1988, p. 66). Unlike these two-dimensional works, however, Archeologi embodies Nietzsche’s metaphysics in its materiality. As De Chirico declared in his “Brevis Pro Plastica Oratio,” published in 1940 in Aria d’Italia, unlike the painter, the sculptor was a proxy of his material, given the task of revealing to his audience what was “already sleeping inside” of his clay (“Brevis Pro Plastica Oratio,” Bolaffi Catalogo della sculptura italiana, no. 5, 1981, p. 56). What De Chirico reveals in Archeologi is what Nietzche terms the “spacing of time” (T. Mical, “A Fragmentary Writing: the (Convulsive) Enigma of Eternal Recurrence in De Chirico’s 'Architecture,'” Ph.D. Diss., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1998, p. 169), between modernity and antiquity, between timeless faceless figures and classical architectural elements.
Archeologi was cast as part of an edition of 7 bronzes cast circa 1988 to celebrate the centenary of De Chirico's birth.