Giorgio de Chirico

Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian painter who lived from 1888 to 1978 and founded the scuola metafisica, or metaphysical painting, movement in the years around 1910 to 1919, known for eerie, dreamlike cityscapes with long shadows, empty arcades and enigmatic mannequin figures, as in The Song of Love and Mystery and Melancholy of a Street. His metaphysical paintings profoundly influenced the Surrealists during the 1920s, including Max Ernst and Salvador Dali, though de Chirico himself later renounced Surrealism and turned toward a more classical, academic style that was received far less warmly by critics.