Description
In this painting by Giorgio de Chirico, ancient and modern collide to create an atmosphere outside of logical rationality and beyond normal coordinates of time and place. A statue inhabits a deserted Italian city square. It represents the sleeping Ariadne, the Cretan princess who according to Greek legend was abandoned by her lover Theseus after aiding his escape from the labyrinth of her monstrous half-brother the Minotaur. For de Chirico, Ariadne was a symbol of haunting loneliness and beauty. The style of the picture is clear and sharp, but a forced perspective plays tricks on our perception of the urban piazza. The sandy foreground with Ariadne is a realm of immobility and quiet, while the area beyond the low brick wall suggests activity and movement: a train chugs along, a cloud of smoke billowing in its wake.
In his Manifesto of Surrealism of 1924, André Breton celebrated the unbridled imagination as the key to freedom in all aspects of life. Artists responded by inventing a wide variety of new expressive forms designed to stir up the human capacity for wonder and amazement. Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 will feature approximately two hundred works by more than seventy artists associated with the international Surrealist movement.
The Philadelphia Art Museum will be the only U.S. venue for this traveling exhibition, following distinct iterations at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which launched this project to celebrate Surrealism’s centenary, and three other European museums. Philadelphia Art Museum highlights will include Joan Miró’s Dog Barking at the Moon (1926), Salvador Dalí’s Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) (1936), and Dorothea Tanning’s Birthday (1942).
- Museum exclusive
- 6" x 9"
- Printed in the USA
