Giorgio De Chirico: Myth and Mystery

The visionary work of Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) had an enormous impact on the course of twentieth-century art. His unsettling 'Metaphysical' imagery - with its illogical perspectives, looming mannequins and bizarre juxtapositions of objects - anticipated Surrealism's fascination with the irrational and the workings of the subconscious by many years. Even before the First World War, de Chirico had declared: "To be really immortal a work of art must go beyond the limits of the human: good sense and logic will be missing from it. In this way it will come close to the dream state, and also to the mentality of children."