(Volos, Greece 1888–1978 Rome)
L’Autunno, 1946, signed; signed with inscription on the reverse, oil on canvas, 181 x 70 cm, framed

This work is registered in the Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico, Rome and is accompanied by a photo certificate of authenticity

Provenance:
Collection Juna Antonio Fernández Anchorena (1896–1966), Paris/Buenos Aires
Galleria d’Arte Sianesi, Milan (label and stamp on the reverse)
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Tbilisi, De Chirico Esoterico: Viaggiatore tra due mondi, Georgian National Museum. Dimitri Shevardnadze National Gallery, 27 March– 27 May 2019

Literature:
C. B. Sakraischik (ed.), Catalogo Generale Giorgio de Chirico, Opere dal 1931 al 1950, Electa Editrice, Milan 1972, vol. I part II, no. 68 with ill. (with wrong measurements)
E. Pontiggia (ed.), Giorgio de Chirico. Gli anni quaranta. La metafisica della natura, il teatro della pittura, La Nave di Teseo, Milan, 2021, p. 261, with ill. (titled “La Primavera”)


Giorgio de Chirico’s “Autumn” is a large canvas dating from 1946. In the same period, he produced three works with a similar compo­sitional framework, depicting allegorical figures of three seasons. The one presented here is Autumn: a young woman is painted almost life-size, with the lower part of her body covered by a piece of fabric knotted at the waist. She holds a piece of cloth with her hands as if she is intent on putting it around her shoulders. In the background, there is a naturalistic landscape, which evolves at a distance from the female figure in the foreground. Above her, a raised curtain acts as a theatrical backdrop, while a still life of fruits and flowers typically associated with autumn frames her feet.

This work belongs to the phase of the artist’s production that commenced in the late 1930s and early 1940s, during which (following his permanent move to Rome in 1944) he rediscovered and drew inspiration from the great masters of ancient and Baroque art. He evokes them to a significant extent in his use of rich and brilliant oil paint, but also in his choice of subject, in the plasticity of the figure’s sinuous forms, in his rendering of the chiaroscuro effect of drapery and in his depiction of still life and landscape. His painting thus becomes neo-Baroque.

The pose of the young woman and the drapery was modelled on ancient statuary, such as the Venus of Arles, a Roman marble sculpture dating from the 1st century B.C. and now held in the Louvre Museum in Paris. Several elements of this sculpture can be seen in De Chirico’s painting: first of all, the pos­itioning of the goddess’s head, bowed with her gaze downwards, turned to her left side, which is virtually identical in the allegorical figure; the dense folds of the robe covering her legs are very similar, although the painting differs in the detail of the knot that fastens this robe at her waist; the hands, like the arm of the goddess holding the fabric, also hold the ends of a piece of cloth that passes behind her back; the arms of both women are raised in a graceful manner and naturally follow the undulating pose of the body; lastly, the two women share similar curly hair.

Her surroundings, on the other hand, are rich in Baroque traits: the theatrical effect of the composition is provided by the drape that rises above the figure like a curtain and the detailed still life of seasonal fruit below. However, the mythical and timeless atmosphere that pervades the scene also contributes to this, as a vaguely idyllic landscape opens up around her as far as the eye can see. The final touch is added to this result via the materiality of the colour and the diffuse luminosity. As the art historian Fabio Benzi neatly summarises (in Giorgio de Chirico. La vita e l’opera, Milan 2019, pp. 446-450): “His precise repertoire seems to encompass all the iconographic terms that the avant-gardes of the period rejected as outrageous rubbish: mytho­logical scenes, pictorial decorativism (silks, velvets, pearl necklaces etc.), pleasant landscapes with horses and characters [...]. His painting became the reasoned iconography and meticulous catalogue of the anti-avant-garde, executed in spite of the new pontiffs who railed against him, who had really invented the avant-garde and influenced a large part of the art of this century”.