Του Γιώργου Λεκάκη
Ο πίνακας «Il gioco dei
balocchi» / «Το παιχνίδι των παιχνιδιών» του Ιταλού ζωγράφου GIORGIO DE CHIRICO
(1888 – 1978), γεννημένου στον Βόλο Μαγνησίας, επανέρχεται στο προσκήνιο, καθώς
δημοπρατείται από τον οίκο Christie’s, Εκτιμάται 3.200.000 δολλ. ΗΠΑ!
Είναι έργο υπογεγραμμένο και
με ημερομηνία «g. de Chirico 1971» (κάτω αριστερά). Έργο με λάδι σε καμβά (50 x
39,7 εκατ.).
Η κατοχή του πέρασε από ιδιωτική
συλλογή (αποκτήθηκε περίπου το 1995), και από πώληση, από τον οίκο Christie’s
Νέας Υόρκης (6 Νοεμβρίου 2013, αρ. 392), απ’ όπου αποκτήθηκε από τον νυν
ιδιοκτήτη που τον ξεπουλάει.
Το Fondazione de Chirico
επιβεβαίωσε την αυθεντικότητα αυτού του έργου. Καταγράφεται στα αρχεία του με
αριθμό 056/07/13.
Έχει εκτεθεί στις εκθέσεις:
– New York Cultural Center and Art Gallery of Ontario, De Chirico by de
Chirico, January-July 1972.
– Museo Nazionale di Reggio Calabria, Omaggio a Giorgio de Chirico,
December 1972-January 1973, no. 33, στο Ρήγιο Καλαβρίας.
– Galerie Isy Brachot, Giorgio de Chirico. Peintures, sculptures,
aquarelles, April-June 1976, no. 17 (illustrated; titled “Lla joie de jouets”) στις Βρυξέλλες.
ΠΕΡΙΣΣΟΤΕΡΑ ΕΙΚΑΣΤΙΚΑ, ΕΔΩ.
Ο Giorgio de Chirico, γνωστός ως ένας από τους καλλιτέχνες που διαμόρφωσαν την Μεταφυσική Ζωγραφική (Pittura metafisica), άσκησε επιρροή σε καλλιτεχνικά ρεύματα του 20ού αιώνα (όπως ο υπερρεαλισμός και η Νέα Αντικειμενικότητα / Neue Sachlichkeit), ήταν λάτρης της ελληνικής μυθολογίας. Ο πατέρας του εργαζόταν ως μηχανικός και επέβλεπε την κατασκευή του θεσσαλικού σιδηροδρομικού δικτύου το 1881. Η οικογένειά του εγκαταστάθηκε μόνιμα στην Ελλάδα το 1897.
ΠΗΓΗ: ΑΡΧΕΙΟΝ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΣΜΟΥ,
22.5.2021.
Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico, Giorgio de Chirico, Catalogo
Generale, τόμος. 1, Opere dal 1912 al 1976,
Falciano, 2014, αρ. 413, σελ. 461 (απεικονίζεται στην σελ. 383).
“The artist likes what reminds him of certain visions that he has
in his mind and in his instincts, and which are his secret world that nobody
can take away from him”
(De Chirico quoted in De Chirico by De Chirico, exh. cat., The New York
Cultural Centre, New York, 1972).
A playful convergence of dynamic architecture, mysterious objects and
dramatic light and shadow, Giorgio de Chirico’s Il gioco dei balocchi (The Game
of Toys) from 1971 aligns in subject with some of the artist’s famed early
pittura metafisica works featuring the themes of “toys” and
“games” such as Le mauvais génie d’un roi (The Evil Genius of a King)
, 1914–15 (Museum of Modern Art, New York). Operating from within their own
internal logic, De Chirico’s carefully constructed compositions utilise complex
geometric interrelationships to create a new artistic reality that defies
literal interpretations of time and space. It was early works such as these
that would cement De Chirico’s reputation at the forefront of the European
avant-garde during the early 20th Century, providing a key inspiration to the
Surrealists who would eagerly follow his lead in manipulating figuration to
challenge perceived realities during subsequent decades.
Il gioco dei balocchi (The Game of Toys) bears particular similarity in
pictorial structure to Le mauvais génie d’un roi (The Evil Genius of a King),
1914-1915 (Museum of Modern Art, New York) which was later reprised with a few
notable changes under the very different title of L’amore del mondo (Love of
the World) , 1960 (Private Collection). Both compositions employ a central
ochre-coloured plane filled with enigmatic candy-coloured geometric objects
which are familiar to us in part from the artist’s interiors and mannequin
figures. These objects appear to defy gravity, following one another around the
pictorial space with their own sense of strategy and meaning, like chess pieces
engaged in play. Ambiguous yet semi-recognisable, they appear as tools of
knowledge or magic—a sundial, a ladder, a spiral with reference to the Golden
Section, vectors, marbles, a wand— suggesting agency towards some secret goal,
beckoning us to reveal the essential truths they might impart about the
universe. They are the tools or perhaps “toys” of the powerful King
whose presence is not revealed, yet is nonetheless felt by association with
their presence and careful placement.
Compositional elements are further shared in common with De Chirico’s
famed composition Le Muse inquietanti (The Disquieting Muses), first painted in
1916 and reprised numerous times throughout the artists lifetime, as such also
appropriated later by Andy Warhol who was inspired by De Chirico’s repetition
of this theme for his work The Disquieting Muses (After de Chirico) , from 1982
(Private Collection). All works share in common the same dramatic architectural
features with incongruous, impossible perspectives and suspenseful shadows,
creating an environment beyond physical reality, bathed in twilight, on the
cusp of night and day, or perhaps within both at once. Figures loom on the
horizon or in the distance amidst De Chirico’s ubiquitous classical
architecture, in Il gioco dei balocchi (The Game of Toys) a figure on horseback
emerges to the right of seeming to charge directly for us, yet is revealed a
stony monument to a triumphant past, static and fixed. This new paradoxical
order of time and space draws all together into one sphere, a vortex of past
and present, fixed and mobile, real and esoteric. Hence we find De Chirico’s
game in defying the conventions of supposed reality, enticing the mind into a
constructed new reality of art where all possibilities exist. As the artist
himself said: “And the perspectives of the constructions rise up, full of
mystery and presentiment, the corners conceal secrets, and the work of art is
no longer the dry episode limited to the actions of the people depicted, but it
is the whole cosmic and vital drama that enmeshes man and draws him into its
spirals; where past and future get mixed-up, where the enigma of existence,
sanctified by the breath of art, divests the tangled and frightful appearance
that outside of art man imagines, to clothe the eternal, tranquil and consoling
aspect of ingenious construction. “(quoted in K. Robinson, “Hidden
Harmony, The King’s Game” in Metafisica, vol. 5, 2006, p. 140).
