The article, entitled

“Building a Mystery: Giorgio De Chirico and Italian Renaissance Painting" looks at the early twentieth-century avant-garde artist Giorgio De Chirico: a figure who exerted a profound influence on more well-known surrealists such as Salvador Dalí. The article explores how De Chirico uses elements from Renaissance paintings—particularly works by Perugino and Raphael—in his earliest metaphysical paintings, thus challenging De Chirico’s own narrative of a rejection of avant-garde modernism in 1919.

While this article in particular is focused on a reappraisal of a particular painter, the broader problem it investigates in looking at the difficult relationship between the past and modernity is a topic that informs discussions within IP303 - A Sustainable Serenissima, where students consider to what extent Venice’s past relationship with sustainable traditions can be used to inform present and future policy decisions.

https://0-www-tandfonline-com.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/doi/full/10.1080/02614340.2019.1556446?scroll=top&needAccess=true

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/schoolforcross-facultystudies/liberalarts/currentstudents/modules/options/venice/