Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian artist who was born in 1888.

He was born in Greece despite both the fact that both parents came from Italy. De Chirico's is known for his creation of Metaphysical Art which is painted in a surrealistic style. Surrealism is an art movement which started in 1920s. Surrealism consists of elements which are composited together and to the audience have no particular meaning. Each object in the painting has its own particular meaning to the artist but confuses the viewer.

De Chirico started painting his metaphysical styles paintings in 1910. The aim of the metaphysical painting was that De Chirico Wanted an art style which wouldnt distract and would have no meaning. He wanted to be able to create an image where the objects in it wouldnt hold the viewers attention for very long and therefore distracting them from the overall piece. He believed that objects acquired various meanings when imbued with memory of their viewer.

The Anxious Journey, 1913 is one of De Chiricos earlier paintings. With its colour scheme of dark greens and black the image appears foreboding. The archways in the center appear to convey a gloomy labyrinth. Such an idea is enforced by the fact that the sense of space and depth is inaccurate and fractured. The way the shadows fall across the porticoes also help convey the feeling of no exit. The locomotive on the horizon looms threateningly and represents De Chiricos memories of his childhood.

The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street was painted in 1914 and depicts a young girl playing with a hoop. The painting depicts two shadows meeting on a pizza. The girl and her hoop is one shadow and the other is one cast by a statue. The picture is divided into a world of darkness and one of light, which fail to marry because they are constructed with two different vanishing points.

Gare Montparnasse (The Melancholy of Departure) was painted in 1914 and is often confused with a later painting of the same name. The image is supposed to represent a theatre set rather than an actual place or time, an unreal backdrop for unreal events. The train and clock represent De Chiricos departure to join the army for World War 1. As well as childhood memories Trains in De Chiricos world depict a sense of traveling form one destination to another in terms of time and space. They depict life from young to old.