Giorgio de Chirico, the originator of metaphysical painting, was born in Vólos, Greece, in 1888. He was a pupil at the Akademie der Bildende Künste in Munich from 1906 to 1910, and was profoundly influenced by the bizarre juxtapositions of the commonplace and fantastic in the works of Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901) and Max Klinger. Around 1910, de Chirico produced his first "enigmatic" pictures, in which an uneasy atmosphere and feeling of disjuncture is enhanced by deep, oppressive, empty spaces. In 1911 de Chirico moved to Paris, where the influential poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) was instrumental in introducing him to leading modernists like Picasso, André Derain, and Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957). De Chirico was drafted into the Italian army in 1915, but suffered a nervous breakdown and was sent to the military hospital at Ferrara in 1917. There he met the Futurist painter Carlo Carr (1881-1966), whom he converted to metaphysical painting.   

General References

• Carr, M., Patrick Waldberg, and M. Rathke, eds. Metaphysical Art. New York and London, 1971.
• Bruni Sakraischik, Claudio, et al. Catalogo generale dell'opera di Giorgio de Chirico. 8 vols. Milan, 1971-83.
• Rubin, William, ed. De Chirico. Exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1982.