Giorgio De Chirico can influence your photography - 2

Giorgio De Chirico can influence your photography – 2

April 11, 2020

In the previous article i’ve analyzed the strong visual impact and the complexity of De Chirico‘s metaphysical paintings. He was a founder of the methaphysical artistic movement influencing also surrealist as Renè Magritte and Salvador Dalì. I’ve made a parallelism between his paintings and photography. In this second part I’ll analyze Giorgio De Chirico’s paintings paying more attention to compositions, perspectives and architectures.

Composition, perspective and architectures

De Chirico painted architectures with classic elements probably influenced by his greek origins; he was inspired also by the italian squares (like Torino). In his paintings places are empty with late afternoon lights and long shadows oriented in different directions (bizarre and alienating element). Rarely you can see human beings that usually are lonely and distant. Analyzing his works we can appreciate an awesome use of dizzying perspective and how he composed the scenes balancing elements among them. Facades, used like theatre wings, emphasize the depth of the scene. If De Chirico was a photographer he’d have used a wide-angle lens for sure. Many of his compositions are minimal and essential.

In De Chirico’s paintings triangles and trapezoids are metaphysical elements. Triangular compositions create a strong visual effect in painting, photography and cinema. Triangle, symbol of perfection, balances and gives dynamism to the whole scene.

Thinking to the masters of street photography I can find many examples of triangular compositions but I’ve posted only few examples.

In some paintings scene is split in two different parts.

Alex Webb (Magnum photographer) uses this kind of composition in many of his pictures. He tries often to find an element that literally split the scene in two different sections.