Description
Book SynopsisIn this interdisciplinary book, Keala Jewell reunites Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) with his brother, Alberto Savinio (1891-1952), a prolific writer and painter who has been kept at the margins of the discussion of surrealism and, more generally, the culture politics of 20th-century Italy.
Trade Review“In this fine book, Keala Jewell studies the works of Giorgio de Chirico and his younger brother Alberto Savinio who together produced an oeuvre shrouded in ‘the motif of secrecy.’ The Art of Enigma, an authentically interdisciplinary book, is the first study that considers the brothers together and addresses the important task of defining and characterizing the Metaphysical art that the brothers developed, especially as it differs from Surrealism, and establishes itself as an Italian, rather than a French, art.”
—Karen Pinkus,University of California, Los Angeles
“By turning her focus away from the familiar Metaphysical canvases of de Chirico’s work of the 1910s, Keala Jewell finds new and exciting relationships between the art and politics of the 1920s and 1930s. As such, this book makes a significant contribution to the field. The Art of Enigma has all the markings of a landmark study in the field.”
—Michael R. Taylor,The Philadelphia Museum of Art
“It must be said that Jewell, a prominent scholar in the field of Italian literature, measures up unflinchingly and with penetrating subtlety, so that, although her attention concentrates on the literary output of the two brothers, this in no way diminishes the value of its contribution to a fuller understanding of their painting.”
—Robert Radford The Art Book
“What would it mean to look at de Chirico differently? . . . Keala Jewell’s new book The Art of Enigma: The De Chirico Brothers and the Politics of Modernism provides the answer to this question by examining the work of the de Chirico brothers, Giorgio and Alberto (later know as Alberto Savinio) together. . . . What emerges is a new picture of the de Chiricos that refuses easy definitions and is salutary for its protean spirit of inclusiveness and heterogeneity.”
—Anthony White Papers of Surrealism
Table of Contents Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Introduction
1. De Chirico’s Cultural Topographies
2. The Cultural Shapes of Space
3. Heroic Cultural Intelligence
4. Inaction Heroes: De Chirico’s Gladiators
5. Isadora Duncan as Metaphysical Heroine
6. Creatures of Difference: Savinio’s Monsters
7. Savinio’s Jewish Hermaphrodite
Afterword: The Brothers Look Back
Bibliography
Notes
Index
