Giorgio de Chirico Quotes

It is most important that we should rid art of all that it has contained of ‘recognizable material’ to date, all familiar subject matter, all traditional ideas, all popular symbols must be banished forthwith. More important still, we must hold enormous faith in ourselves; it is essential that the revelation we receive, the conception of an image which embraces a certain thing, which has no sense in itself, which has no subject, which means ‘absolutely nothing’ from the logical point of view.. ..should speak so strongly in us, evoke such agony or joy, that we feel compelled to paint.

To become truly immortal a work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere. But once these barriers are broken it will enter the regions of childhood vision and dream.

..the flat surface of a perfectly calm ocean [which] disturbs us.. ..by all the unknown that is hidden in the depth.

I exhibited three paintings at the Salon d'Automne exhibition [Paris], which is the most interesting exhibition I have seen until now. Much more interesting than the Secession [in München]. My paintings [two words cancelled] were noticed and praised by the art critics. I think I will be very famous here in a few years time. Reading my name in the newspapers and seeing people notice my paintings and write about them has given me new and strange joy. – Paris is a beautiful city. Why do you remain in the monotony of Munich's heavy atmosphere? Here one can find everything one desires. Everything is refined and has spirit and everyday one learns something new. .The French are more intelligent than I thought. They laugh a lot, but they understand better than the Germans what is refined, strange and outside the ordinary.

You misunderstood my words when I said that Michelangelo was a stupid artist.. .Because I have drunk from another source and a new and marvelous thirst burns my lips – how can I still believe in such artists?! I know what you are thinking when you ask me: 'isn't David a superman? This is how I used to feel, this is what I used to think. The majority of the world's great spirits thought it so.. ..but now a new air has entered my soul, a new song has reached my ears and the whole world appears totally changed – the autumn afternoon has arrived, the long shadows, the clear air, the serene sky –, in a word: Zarathustra has arrived, do you understand??.. ..It is only with Nietzsche that I can say I have begun a real life.

What I have created here in Italy is neither very big nor profound (in the old sense of the word), but formidable. This summer I painted paintings that are the most profound that exist in the absolute. Let me explain these things somewhat.. .. profoundness as I understand it, and as Nietzsche intended it, is elsewhere than where it has been searched for until now. – My paintings are small (the biggest is 50 x 70 cm), but each of them is an enigma, each contains a poem, an atmosphere (Stimmung) and a promise that you can not find in other paintings. It brings me immense joy to have painted them – when I exhibit them, possibly in Munich this spring, it will be a revelation for the whole world

I took a trip to Florence and Rome in October and in the spring I will probably go to Florence to live as it is the city I like the most. I have been working and studying a lot and I now have very different goals than before..