Term applied to the work of Giorgio De Chirico and Carlo Carrà
before and during World War I and thereafter to the works
produced by the Italian artists who grouped around them. Pittura
Metafisica was characterized by a recognizable iconography: a
fictive space was created in the painting, modelled on
illusionistic one-point perspective but deliberately subverted.
In de Chirico’s paintings this established disturbingly deep
city squares, bordered by receding arcades and distant brick
walls; or claustrophobic interiors, with steeply rising floors.
Within these spaces classical statues and, most typically,
metaphysical mannequins (derived from tailors’ dummies) provided
a featureless and expressionless, surrogate human presence.
Balls, coloured toys and unidentifiable solids, plaster moulds,
geometrical instruments, military regalia and small realistic
paintings were juxtaposed on exterior platforms or in crowded
interiors and, particularly in Carrà’s work, included alongside
the mannequins. In the best paintin