Giorgio de Chirico, Cavalli Presso un Castello, c. 1961
Published in Sotheby’s London: Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale Auction Catalogue, February 2011
Giorgio de Chirico had posited: ‘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 realms of childhood visions and dreams’ (Charles Harrison & Dr Paul Wood, Art in Theory, 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, London, 2002, p. 58).
Depicting three horses in a near caricatural and expressionistic style. Cavalli presso un castello dramatically revisits one of de Chirico’s most iconic images, reaffirming the subject within the artist’s œvure. Although the work was executed at a time when the art scene found itself divided between abstraction and figuration, the artistic style is reminiscent of the baroque, as it recalls a painterly approach. A true pioneer of his time, de Chirico was one of the few artists who sought to innovate contemporary approaches to painting, while reinterpreting a classic artistic language anchored in tradition. Hence, the resultant artwork creates a ruptured continuity with past artistic traditions, as well as the artist’s own style.
