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… - Giorgio de Chirico

Dear Mr. Rosenberg - I was very surprised this morning that you refused to give me 2,000 fr. especially given that I had told you that my wife was gravely ill in Berlin and that I needed to leave immediately. You probably thought it was a tale I was telling you in order to shave some money off the sum that you owe me; to prove to you that this is not the case, I enclose with this letter a telegram that I received this morning. Strong though the crisis may be and as strongly as you may have applied the brakes, it is not possible that you are not able to find 1,000 fr. for a painter with whom you have done business for six years now and who (I dare hope) enjoys all your esteem; especially given that the said painter tells you that his wife is seriously ill and that he needs to leave.
I should tell you that in general the way you act in these times of crises is not particularly heroic.

Among the many senses that modern painters have lost, we must number the sense of architecture. The edifice accompanying the human figure, whether alone or in a group, whether in a scene from life or in an historical drama, was a great concern of the ancients. They applied themselves to it with loving and severe spirit, studying and perfecting the laws of perspective. A landscape enclosed in the arch of a portico or in the square or rectangle of a window acquires a greater metaphysical value, because it is solidified and isolated from the surrounding space. Architecture completes nature. (1920)

Perhaps the most amazing sensation passed on to us by prehistoric man is that of presentiment. It will always continue. We might consider it as an eternal proof of the irrationality of the universe. Original man must have wandered through a world full of uncanny signs. He must have trembled at each step.