Metaphysical painting

A Belgian artist-innovator, a bright representative of Surrealism. Pictures of Paul Delvaux are inspired by secret desires, subconscious fears and vivid impressions from childhood. The painter’s art is famous, first of all, for its naked women, silent and motionless, like statues, in an atmosphere of mystery and emptiness.Most of Paul Delvaux’s creative career developed during World War II and the occupation of his home country. This was one of the reasons why an anxious mood and restless motives appeared in his paintings; although this was expressed not in a direct way but through an appeal to the psyche of a man and his subconscious.Even though Delvaux never officially belonged to surrealist groups and did not even associate himself with this movement, he was close to many of the surrealists. The artist closely communicated with Rene Magritte, who had a noticeable influence on him, and Andre Breton, the founder of Surrealism.In his work, the artist did not use abstract objects, as his colleagues did. On the contrary, the master’s paintings are striking in their realism and correctness of forms. Paul Delvaux created the stunning atmosphere of mystery in his works using his methods, combining extraordinary images with the symbolism and incomprehensibility of the plot.

An English avant-garde artist, an active participant in the non-durable but radical movement “Vorticism” that appeared in London just before the First World War.Edward Wadsworth not only signed the Manifesto of the new association, but also created graphic compositions for Blast magazine, working closely with its chief editor, Wyndham Lewis. Having placed the magazine “Explosion” in Wadsworth’s hand in his canvas “Vorticists in the restaurant de la Tour Eiffel: Spring, 1915”, his colleague W. Roberts emphasized his significant role in the group. This was fundamentally important in the 1960s, when interest in the movement became more intense.The artist traveled a lot and contributed to the further development of the British avant-garde, introducing ideas of Surrealism into it. He was a member of such significant creative associations as the Paris group Abstraction-Création.

An Italian painter, a forerunner of Surrealism. Together with Futurist Carlo Carra, Giorgio de Chirico was the creator of metaphysical painting - the most original and important style in Italian art of the early twentieth century. Despite the fact that this style did not last long, it became the main one for the artist and brought him worldwide fame. De Chirico's metaphysical paintings had a great influence on Surrealists, who saw in them the expression of the unconscious and illogical that they aspired to.The work of Giorgio de Chirico originates in German philosophy, in particular in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as in the work of Symbolist Arnold Böcklin. From them, he drew interest in the symbolism of objects and the interaction of the form and environment. Like his teachers, the artist paid much attention to the process of self-improvement and observation, trying to comprehend the inner harmony of the universe.Closely connected with the Paris avant-garde movement, de Chirico created original art, which inexplicably combined his love for classics and the feelings of emptiness and loss that are characteristic of contemporary art. In the artist’s paintings, deserted streets and towers coexist with symbolic objects and mannequins, which are not connected logically. All this, created in bright colours, creates a sense of artificiality of reality and its conventionality.

An Italian painter, architect, sculptor and art critic. He worked mostly in Milan and Rome. The work of Mario Sironi overcame several cardinal changes during his long career. The artist made the greatest contribution to Futurism, enriching and supplementing it with his original finds, as well as to metaphysical painting, becoming its bright and original representative. He was also one of the creators of the “Novechento” style that tried to change the diversity of modernist movements with a more rational “return to order”.Mario Sironi was a master of the industrial landscape subtly feeling the rhythm and atmosphere of his era. His paintings are distinguished by twilight mood and dark tones, contrasting sharply with the bright and enthusiastic canvases of Futurists. Using a rather limited palette, thanks to his sense of colour and form Sironi managed to create a unique atmosphere of alienation and emptiness of the modern world.Like many of his colleagues, the artist supported the fascist regime and created murals and mosaics commissioned to the order of the government. After the fall of the Mussolini regime, he experienced a great shock and disappointment, which negatively affected his work, but he continued to actively paint until the end of his days.

Wyndham Lewis, the most famous English modernist, played a prominent role in both painting and literature. He is best known as the founder and the main representative of Vorticism, a specific branch of Futurism in the art that went far enough beyond its borders. Despite conventional methods, the idea of ​​this English avant-garde movement is not to glorify the mechanization of society, but in its detrimental effect. The name of the work that derived from the Italian «vortizto» (whirlwind) is taken from the statement by W. Boccioni, an Italian Futurist, that all creativity comes from a whirlwind of feelings. Through the journals he published, Lewis influenced the development of the pioneering British movement as a whole.He mostly created portraits – he depicted key representatives of the culture of England in the first half of the 20th century, whom he knew personally. In the plot genre, the most powerful is his cycle of works on military subjects: the artist participated in the First World War.

An Italian painter and graphic artist, a representative of Futurism and Metaphysical painting. A creatively active artist and painting theorist, Carlo Carra was one of the most famous artists in Italy in the early decades of the 20th century and an influential member of the futuristic movement.The artist’s style changed dramatically several times over his long career. He survived several successive periods: early Neo-impressionism and Symbolism, Futurism, Cubism, metaphysics and neoclassical painting.The artist made the most significant contribution to Futurism. In his paintings, he skillfully combined the original techniques of cubism with dynamism and the bold innovation of futuristic ideology. Carra’s canvas of the futuristic period is filled with incredibly bright and energetic images, chaotic movement and wild emotions.During the war, he met with Giorgio de Chirico, with whom he founded a style known as metaphysical painting. Since then, he painted still lifes and interiors filled with ominous emptiness and mysterious silence. In the late 1920s, the artist completely abandoned the avant-garde art and defended the conservative aesthetics of Novecento.

A German representative of avant-garde, a prominent artist, sculptor, master of monumental painting, as well as a choreographer, theater designer and art theorist. For about 10 years he worked at the famous Bauhaus school of art and industry (Bauhaus, Weimar), developing the training course “Der Mensch” (Man), which was based on the synthesis of the techniques of several artistic disciplines and different styles. Oscar Schlemmer made a significant contribution to the art of scenography, creating design and choreography for several operas and ballets. The artist’s paintings were included in the list of “degenerative”; he was forbidden to paint and work as a teacher at art schools.

The French artist of Polish and Jewish origin was one of the most mysterious and mystical artists of the twentieth century, whose paintings are extremely ambiguous and are popular in the international art community. Balthus was one of those painters who cannot be clearly catalogued. He deliberately isolated himself from all the artistic trends that had succeeded in his time, in order, as he admitted, to achieve timeless realism.Baltus (Count Baltazar Klossowski) is known for his erotically charged images of teenage girls living in the world of their imagination and images. Therefore, his paintings are more reminiscent of magical realism with its fantastic world than surrealism. It is hard to say that the master’s painting was influenced by the prevailing fashion to return to realism - he initially used the techniques of the art of the Old Masters in order to create his own universe. His not always harmless and characteristic bourgeois interiors are just the conditions for depicting an ambiguous world populated by young people at the height of puberty, in which adults are not allowed, but can pervertedly intrude, as described in the scandalous work “Guitar Lesson”, which the New York MOMA first purchased, and soon got rid of. The artist actively resisted any attempts to create his biographical profile - in a telegram sent to the Tate Gallery, where a retrospective of his works was being prepared, he wrote in response to a request: “Balthus is an artist about whom nothing is known. Now let's see his work”.

A Spanish surrealist artist and sculptor, whom art experts refer to very significant and undeservedly little-known painters of the 20th century. A fellow student of Salvador Dali, a member of the art group Logicophobiste (Barcelona) had a unique style - certainly her own view on the moral aspects and mechanics of life. Her works are full of subtle wit and mystery; the theme of her paintings is motivated by the studies of antiquity and literary sources, as well as by physics and mathematics, engineering and biology in combination with psychoanalysis.Fleeing from the Franco regime, feminist and anarchist Varo, who had republican contacts, moved to Paris, but during the times of the Second World War immigrated to Mexico. The artist’s unique style combines fragments of the subconscious, mystical principle and a deep understanding of the human soul. It takes its roots in the atmosphere of the Middle Ages, the art of Jheronimus Bosch, scientific theories and esoteric literature. Varo created her main works in the second half of her life, and gained worldwide fame after her death.The artist’s paintings are allegorical and filled with deep meaning. They make the viewer think about the nature of the Universe and the secrets of existence hidden in simple things. The incredible world of Remedios Varo attracts you with its lyricism, emphasized femininity, and paradoxes of reality, which the artist tirelessly created in each of her paintings.The magic and mysticism of the works of Remedios Varo have much in common with the works of her close friend, Leonora Carrington, who, like Varo, emigrated from Europe that suffered from wars to relatively calm Mexico. Together, the women organized a circle of Surrealists, whose work also contained the influence of local culture, in particular the “muralism”, which was a mixture of avant-garde movements with the art of South American Indians.

German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, poet and one of the key figures in Surrealism and the Dada movement.Ernst’s father was a teacher at a school for deaf children and an amateur artist. That is why, under his guidance, Max started painting at an early age. From the outset, Max was an impressionable child and fancied going to the forest with his father. In 1906, Ernst’s younger sister was born. That same day, his beloved parrot died. The timing of these two events struck the teenager, and he decided that his small sister had taken the life of the bird. From that point on, the artist repeatedly portrayed people in the form of birds.

Spanish painter, graphic artist, sculptor, director and writer. One of the most famous figures in Surrealism, and author of “The Persistence of Memory”, one of the most famous paintings of the 20th century.Dalí started painting at the age of four. He created his first serious work at the age of ten. It was a small impressionistic landscape, painted on a wooden board with oil paints. Henceforth, Dali spent whole days sitting in a small, specially allocated room and painting pictures. “I wanted to be given the laundry under the roof of our house. I got it and made it my own workshop, decorating it in the way I preferred,” he remembered later. Moreover, he liked to analyze the works of famous artists. He wrote and published essays about the works of Velazquez, Goya, El Greco, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.

The founder of European Futurism and one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century in Italy. The main thing in his painting is the sense of movement, which the artist tried to convey first with the help of pointillism invented by Georges Seurat, and later with his own methods and finds in art.Giacomo Balla became the author of the first paintings depicting various objects in dynamics; his deep knowledge of the art of photography helped him. The artist shared his discoveries with his students Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini, with whom he proclaimed the manifesto of Futurism in 1910.Balla’s paintings entered the history of fine art as the first attempts to reproduce the dynamics of real life. Based on his work, the first animated films were created. The decomposition of objects, which the artist himself called "moving light", opened a direct path to non-point forms leading to complete abstraction.The post-war creations of the artist were close to abstraction; they became less rapid but more saturated in colour. Balla also became one of the founders of "aero painting" - a short-term movement in the visual arts, the purpose of which was to reflect the feeling of fly and weightlessness.In addition to the works of fine art, the painter created futuristic sculptures, theatrical scenery and costumes, as well as various design objects. His work served as the basis for the development of Abstract art.

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The Edinburgh National Gallery (Scotland).

Mediums: tempera, fabric. Location: The Tate Modern Gallery, London (the UK).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The Tate Modern Gallery, London (the UK).

Mediums: tempera, canvas, wood. Location: The Tate Modern Gallery, London (the UK).

Mediums: tempera, canvas. Location: The Tate Modern Gallery, London (the UK).

Mediums: tempera, canvas. Location: The Tate Modern Gallery, London (the UK).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The Gallery of Modern Art (Milan, Italy).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: private collection.

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The National Museum of Sweden (Stockholm, Sweden).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The National Gallery of Modern Art (Rome, Italy).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The Museum of Modern Art (New York, USA).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The National Museum of Modern Art, Center Georges Pompidou, (Paris, France).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: private collection.

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The collection of Peggy Guggenheim (Venice, Italy).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The Toronto Art Gallery (Canada).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: private collection.

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: private collection.

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The Brera Gallery (Milan, Italy).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The collection of Mattioli (Milan, Italy).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The Pinacoteca Brera (Milan, Italy).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (the USA).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (the USA).

Location: The Museum of Modern Art, New York (the USA).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Location: The Georges Pompidou Center, Paris (France).

Материалы: масло, холст. Местонахождение: находится в Georges Pompidou Center, Paris (France).

Mediums: oil, canvas. Dimensions: 54 x 43,8 сm. Location: Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt.