Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
ADJUNCT MODULE C: WORLD ART
Preferred Title:
Soothsayer's Recompense
Image View:
Overall view without fame; sculpture in center represents Ariadne
Creator:
Giorgio de Chirico (Italian painter, 1888-1978)
Location:
repository: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Montréal, Québec, Canada)
Location Note:
1380 Sherbrooke Street West; Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion for Peace
GPS:
45.4987-73.5801
Date:
1913 (creation)
Cultural Context:
Italian
Style Period:
Metaphysical (modern Italian fine arts style and movement); Surrealist; Twentieth century
Work Type 1:
painting (visual work)
Classification:
Paintings
Material:
oil paint on canvas
Technique:
oil painting (technique)
Subjects:
abstraction; allegory; architecture; mythology (Classical); trains; smokestack; arcade; Ariadne
Description:
This is one in a series of paintings (Piazze d’Italia series) and shares the same title (and most of the same motifs) as does a work in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. From around 1910 to 1914 the city squares became increasingly dream-like, dotted with the apparently unconnected and out-of-scale objects that delighted the early Surrealists. The steam train that chugs along on the horizon is a reference to de Chirico’s dead father, a railway engineer. By the end of 1912 these Italianate town squares began to be occupied by the mythological figure of Ariadne; her assistance to Theseus in the escape from the Minotaur’s labyrinth was a symbol of revelation. (Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordart online.com/)
Collection:
Archivision Adjunct Module C: World Art
Identifier:
7A1-KEES-WOAS-A01
Rights:
© Scott Gilchrist, Archivision, Inc.

Soothsayer's Recompense