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Lot Essay
"The art of the future expresses sensations hitherto unknown: one should strip art of... routine, rule and the tendency towards aesthetic subjects of synthesis, of expressing a symbol, a sensation or thought (and) be liberated once and for all from the anthropomorphism that shackles sculpture. See everything, even a man as a thing. This is the Nietzschean method. Applied to painting it might produce interesting results. That is what I try to demonstrate in my pictures." (Il mechanismo del pensiero, quoted in; Exh. cat., London, Tate Gallery, On Classical Ground, 1990, p. 74)
Executed in 1928, the year that marked de Chirico's final break with the Surrealist movement and the beginning of a long feud with its dictatorial leader André Breton, La cohorte invincible is a particularly impressive example of de Chirico's continuous reworking and exploitation of classical motifs.
Born of Italian parents, and spending most of his youth in Greece, de Chirico was fascinated throughout his life by the classical vision of the world. In the 1920s his art began to move away from the style of the earlier metaphysical pictures, which had been such a profound influence on the Surrealists. Instead he moved towards a more overtly classical style which the poet Jean Clair described as evoking, "strange effects, a feeling of mourning, and melancholy, of ruined landscapes evoking dying civilizations and an affirmed theatricality." (Jean Clair quoted in: De Chirico and America, New York 1996, p. 100)
La cohorte invincible displays the 'melancholic' and the 'theatrical' classicism of de Chirico's new style through the representation of a myriad of classical images and objects intermingled within a compacted group of gladiators. At the forefront of the picture, the foremost gladiator holds a Roman legionary's shield and at his feet lies that archetypal symbol of morality and antiquity - a broken column. Like the painting Victory (fig. 2), the compactness of the figures and their antique attributes echo in the manner of their construction de Chirico's earlier metaphysical constructions such as that of The Great Metaphysician in the Nationalgalerie in Berlin. Together these images form a tension and a sculptural unity that suggests the formidable united power of a Roman cohort but in a somewhat absurd, if not to say, comic way.
Set in an interior reminiscent of a stage-set, the figures of this complex sculptural mass of classicism, masculinity and armed strength betray a Baroque exuberance and theatricality that conveys a pervasive sense of artifice. In this, La cohorte invincible is indicative of a mood that was also evoked in the contemporary plays and operas of de Chirico's friend, Jean Cocteau such as Orphée of 1925 and Oedipus Rex of 1927. The present painting anticipated the stage-sets and costumes that de Chirico himself would design for the theatre and the ballet in 1929.
The artist has stated that many of his scenes of gladiators from this period were often intended as a satire on the characters of the art world who, since his split with Breton, had also turned against him. Through the depiction of those epic classical warriors fighting indoors, de Chirico found a humorous means of both mocking his detractors and celebrating the classical tradition that he loved. In the present work, this duality is expressed in an eloquent tongue-in-cheek manner that combines a sense of theatricality, artifice and the absurd to convey, like so much of the artist's finest work, his long-held belief that the world, both past and present, should be viewed as "an immense museum of curiosity, full of odd toys." (op. cit., 1990, p. 74)
Executed in 1928, the year that marked de Chirico's final break with the Surrealist movement and the beginning of a long feud with its dictatorial leader André Breton, La cohorte invincible is a particularly impressive example of de Chirico's continuous reworking and exploitation of classical motifs.
Born of Italian parents, and spending most of his youth in Greece, de Chirico was fascinated throughout his life by the classical vision of the world. In the 1920s his art began to move away from the style of the earlier metaphysical pictures, which had been such a profound influence on the Surrealists. Instead he moved towards a more overtly classical style which the poet Jean Clair described as evoking, "strange effects, a feeling of mourning, and melancholy, of ruined landscapes evoking dying civilizations and an affirmed theatricality." (Jean Clair quoted in: De Chirico and America, New York 1996, p. 100)
La cohorte invincible displays the 'melancholic' and the 'theatrical' classicism of de Chirico's new style through the representation of a myriad of classical images and objects intermingled within a compacted group of gladiators. At the forefront of the picture, the foremost gladiator holds a Roman legionary's shield and at his feet lies that archetypal symbol of morality and antiquity - a broken column. Like the painting Victory (fig. 2), the compactness of the figures and their antique attributes echo in the manner of their construction de Chirico's earlier metaphysical constructions such as that of The Great Metaphysician in the Nationalgalerie in Berlin. Together these images form a tension and a sculptural unity that suggests the formidable united power of a Roman cohort but in a somewhat absurd, if not to say, comic way.
Set in an interior reminiscent of a stage-set, the figures of this complex sculptural mass of classicism, masculinity and armed strength betray a Baroque exuberance and theatricality that conveys a pervasive sense of artifice. In this, La cohorte invincible is indicative of a mood that was also evoked in the contemporary plays and operas of de Chirico's friend, Jean Cocteau such as Orphée of 1925 and Oedipus Rex of 1927. The present painting anticipated the stage-sets and costumes that de Chirico himself would design for the theatre and the ballet in 1929.
The artist has stated that many of his scenes of gladiators from this period were often intended as a satire on the characters of the art world who, since his split with Breton, had also turned against him. Through the depiction of those epic classical warriors fighting indoors, de Chirico found a humorous means of both mocking his detractors and celebrating the classical tradition that he loved. In the present work, this duality is expressed in an eloquent tongue-in-cheek manner that combines a sense of theatricality, artifice and the absurd to convey, like so much of the artist's finest work, his long-held belief that the world, both past and present, should be viewed as "an immense museum of curiosity, full of odd toys." (op. cit., 1990, p. 74)