Aziz Art August 2018

AZIZ ART August 2018

Giorgio de Chirico HALA KHAYAT Ismail al-Shaikhly Shakir Hassan Al Said

1-Giorgio de Chirico 11-Hala Khayat 13-Ismail al-Shaikhly 19-Shakir Hassan Al Said

Director: Aziz Anzabi Editor : Nafiseh Yaghoubi Translator : Asra Yaghoubi Research: Zohreh Nazari

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Giorgio de Chirico 10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978 was an Italian artist and writer. In the years before World War I, he founded the scuola metafisica art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. After 1919, he became interested in traditional painting techniques, and worked in a neoclassical or neo-Baroque style, while frequently revisiting the metaphysical themes of his earlier work.

Life and works De Chirico was born in Volos, Greece, to a Genoan mother and a Sicilian father.[After studying art at Athens Polytechnic—mainly under the guidance of the influential Greek painters Georgios Roilos and Georgios Jakobides—and Florence, he moved to Germany in 1906, following his father's death in 1905. He entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he studied under Max Klinger and read the writings of the philosophers Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer and Otto Weininger. There, he also studied the works of Arnold Böcklin.

He returned to Italy in the summer of 1909 and spent six months in Milan. At the beginning of 1910, he moved to Florence where he painted the first of his 'Metaphysical Town Square' series, The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon, after the revelation he felt in Piazza Santa Croce. He also painted The Enigma of the Oracle while in Florence. In July 1911 he spent a few days in Turin on his way to Paris. De Chirico was profoundly moved by what he called the 'metaphysical aspect' of Turin, especially the architecture of its archways and piazzas. De Chirico moved to Paris in July 1911, where he joined his brother Andrea.

Through his brother he met Pierre Laprade, a member of the jury at the Salon d'Automne, where he exhibited three of his works: Enigma of the Oracle, Enigma of an Afternoon and Self-Portrait. During 1913 he exhibited paintings at the Salon des Indépendants and Salon d’Automne; his work was noticed

by Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, and he sold his first painting, The Red Tower. In 1914, through Apollinaire, he met the art 1

dealer Paul Guillaume, with whom he signed a contract for his artistic output.

At the outbreak of World War I, he returned to Italy. Upon his arrival in May 1915, he enlisted in the army, but he was considered unfit for work and assigned to the hospital at Ferrara. Here he met with Carlo CarrĂ and together they founded the pittura metafisica movement.[2] He continued to paint, and in 1918, he transferred to Rome. Starting from 1918, his work was exhibited extensively in Europe.

In autumn, 1919, de Chirico published an article in Valori plastici entitled "The Return of Craftsmanship", in which he advocated a return to traditional methods and iconography.This article heralded an abrupt change in his artistic orientation, as he adopted a classicizing manner inspired by such old masters as Raphael and Signorelli, and became an outspoken opponent of modern art.

In the early 1920s, the Surrealist De Chirico is best known for the writer AndrĂŠ Breton discovered one paintings he produced between of de Chirico's metaphysical 1909 and 1919, his metaphysical paintings on display in Guillaume's period, which are characterized Paris gallery, and was by haunted, brooding moods enthralled.Numerous young artists evoked by their images. At the who were similarly affected by de start of Chirico's imagery became the core this period, his subjects were still of the Paris Surrealist group cityscapes inspired by the bright centered around Breton. In 1924 de daylight of Mediterranean cities, Chirico visited Paris and was but gradually he turned his accepted into the group, although attention to studies of cluttered the surrealists were severely critical storerooms, sometimes inhabited of his post-metaphysical work. by mannequin-like hybrid figures.

De Chirico met and married his first wife, the Russian ballerina Raissa Gurievich in 1925, and together they moved to Paris.His relationship with the Surrealists grew increasingly contentious, as they publicly disparaged his new work; by 1926 he had come to regard them as "cretinous and hostile".They soon parted ways in acrimony. In 1928 he held his first exhibition in New York City and shortly afterwards, London. He wrote essays on art and other subjects, and in 1929 published a novel entitled Hebdomeros, the Metaphysician. Also in 1929, he made stage designs for Sergei Diaghilev.

work.

In 1939, he adopted a neo-Baroque style influenced by Rubens.De Chirico's later paintings never received the same critical praise as did those from his metaphysical period. He resented this, as he thought his later work was better and more mature. He nevertheless produced backdated "selfforgeries" both to profit from his earlier success, and as an act of revenge—retribution for the critical preference for his early work.He also denounced many paintings attributed to him in public and private collections as forgeries. In 1945, he published his memoirs.

He remained extremely prolific De Chirico in 1970, even as he approached his 90th photographed by Paolo Monti. year. During the 1960s, Fondo Paolo Monti, BEIC Massimiliano Fuksas worked in his In 1930, de Chirico met his atelier. In 1974 de Chirico was second wife, Isabella Pakszwer Far, elected to the French AcadĂŠmie des a Russian, with whom he would Beaux-Arts. He died in Rome on 20 remain for the rest of his life.

November 1978.

Together they moved to Italy in 1932 and to the US in 1936,[2] His brother, Andrea de Chirico, who finally settling in Rome in 1944. became famous under the name In 1948 he bought a house Alberto Savinio, was also a writer near the Spanish Steps which is and a painter. now a museum dedicated to his

Style In the paintings of his metaphysical period, de Chirico developed a repertoire of motifs—empty arcades, towers, elongated shadows, mannequins, and trains among others—that he arranged to create "images of forlornness and emptiness" that paradoxically also convey a feeling of "power and freedom ".According to Sanford Schwartz, de Chirico—whose father was a railroad engineer— painted images that suggest "the way you take in buildings and vistas from the perspective of a train window. His towers, walls, and plazas seem to flash by, and you are made to feel the power that comes from seeing things that way: you feel you know them more intimately than the people do who live with them day by day."

In 1982, Robert Hughes wrote that de Chirico could condense voluminous feeling through metaphor and association ... In The Joy of Return, 1915, de Chirico's train has

once more entered the city ... a bright ball of vapor hovers directly above its smokestack. Perhaps it comes from the train and is near us. Or possibly it is a cloud on the horizon, lit by the sun that never penetrates the buildings, in the last electric blue silence of dusk. It contracts the near and the far, enchanting one's sense of space.

Early de Chiricos are full of such effects. Et quid amabo nisi quod aenigma est? ("What shall I love if not the enigma?")—this question, inscribed by the young artist on his self-portrait in 1911, is their subtext.

In this, he resembles his more representational American contemporary, Edward Hopper: their pictures' low sunlight, their deep and often irrational shadows, their empty walkways and portentous silences creating an enigmatic visual poetry.

legacy De Chirico won praise for his work almost immediately from the writer Guillaume Apollinaire, who helped to introduce his work to the later Surrealists. De Chirico strongly influenced the Surrealist movement: Yves Tanguy wrote how one day in 1922 he saw one of de Chirico's paintings in an art dealer's window, and was so impressed by it he resolved on the spot to become an artist—although he had never even held a brush. Other Surrealists who acknowledged de Chirico's influence include Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, and René Magritte. Other artists as diverse as Giorgio Morandi, Carlo Carrà, Paul Delvaux, Carel Willink, Harue Koga and Philip Guston were influenced by de Chirico.

De Chirico's style has influenced several filmmakers, particularly in the 1950s through 1970s. The visual style of the French animated film Le Roi et l'oiseau, by Paul Grimault and Jacques Prévert, was influenced by de Chirico's work, primarily via Tanguy, a friend of Prévert. The visual style of Valerio

Zurlini's film The Desert of the Tartars (1976) was influenced by de Chirico's work. Michelangelo Antonioni, the Italian film director, also claimed to be influenced by de Chirico. Some comparison can be made to the long takes in Antonioni's films from the 1960s, in which the camera continues to linger on desolate cityscapes populated by a few distant figures, or none at all, in the absence of the film's protagonists.

Writers who have appreciated de Chirico include John Ashbery, who has called Hebdomeros "probably...the finest [major work of Surrealist fiction]."Several of Sylvia Plath's poems are influenced by de Chirico. In his book Blizzard of One Mark Strand included a poetic diptych called "Two de Chiricos:" "The Philosopher's Conquest" and "The Disquieting Muses."

Gabriele Tinti has composed three poemsinspired by Giorgio de Chirico’s paintings; The Nostalgia of the poet (1914),The Uncertainty of the Poet (1913) and Ariadne (1913),respectively in the collections of Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

Tate and Metropolitan Museum of Art. The poems were read by actor Burt Young at The Met in New York The box art for Fumito Ueda's PlayStation 2 game Ico used in Japan and Europe was strongly influenced by de Chirico.The cover art of New Order's single "Thieves Like Us" is based on de Chirico's painting The Evil Genius of a King.

Honours 1958: Member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium.

Academie de France.

Selected works Flight of the Centauri, Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon and Enigma of the Oracle (1909) Ritratto di Andrea de Chirico (Alias Alberto Savinio) (1909–1910) The Enigma of the Hour (1911) The Nostalgia of the Infinite (1911), or 1912–1913 Melanconia, The Enigma of the Arrival and La Matinée Angoissante (1912) The Soothsayers Recompense, The Red Tower, Ariadne, The Awakening of Ariadne, The Uncertainty of the Poet, La Statua Silenziosa, The Anxious Journey, Melancholy of a Beautiful Day, Le Rêve Transformé, and Self-Portrait (1913) The Anguish of Departure (begun in 1913), Portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire, The Nostalgia of the Poet, L'Énigme de la fatalité, Gare Montparnasse (The Melancholy of Departure), The Song of Love, The Enigma of a Day, The Philosopher's Conquest, The Child's Brain, The Philosopher and the Poet, Still Life: Turin in Spring, Piazza d'Italia (Autumn Melancholy), and Melancholy and Mystery of a Street (1914) The Evil Genius of a King (begun in 1914), The Seer (or The Prophet), Piazza d’Italia, The Double Dream of Spring, The Purity of a Dream, Two Sisters (The Jewish Angel) and The Duo (1915) Andromache, The Melancholy of Departure, The Disquieting Muses, Metaphysical Interior with Biscuits (1916) Metaphysical Interior with Large Factory and The Faithful Servitor (both began in 1916), The Great Metaphysician, Ettore e Andromaca, Metaphysical Interior, Geometric Composition with Landscape and Factory and Great Metaphysical Interior (1917) Metaphysical Muses and Hermetic Melancholy (1918) Still Life with Salami and The Sacred Fish (1919) Self-portrait (1920) The Disquieting Muses (1947), replica of the 1916 painting, University of Iowa Museum of Art

Italian Piazza, Maschere and Departure of the Argonauts (1921) The Prodigal Son (1922) Florentine Still Life (c. 1923) The House with the Green Shutters (1924) The Great Machine (1925) Honolulu Museum of Art Au Bord de la Mer, Le Grand Automate, The Terrible Games, Mannequins on the Seashore and The Painter (1925) La Commedia e la Tragedia (Commedia Romana), The Painter's Family and Cupboards in a Valley (1926) L’Esprit de Domination, The Eventuality of Destiny (Monumental Figures), Mobili nella valle and The Archaeologists (1927) Temple et Forêt dans la Chambre (1928) Gladiatori (began in 1927), The Archaeologists IV (from the series Metamorphosis), The return of the Prodigal son I (from the series Metamorphosis) and Bagnante (Ritratto di Raissa) (1929) I fuochi sacri (for the Calligrammes) 1929 Illustrations from the book Calligrammes by Guillaume Apollinaire (1930) I Gladiatori (Combattimento) (1931) Milan Cathedral, 1932 Cavalos a Beira-Mar (1932–1933) Cavalli in Riva al Mare (1934) La Vasca di Bagni Misteriosi (1936) The Vexations of The Thinker (1937) Self-portrait (1935–1937) Archeologi (1940) Illustrations from the book L’Apocalisse (1941) Portrait of Clarice Lispector (1945) Villa Medici – Temple and Statue (1945) Minerva (1947) Metaphysical Interior with Workshop (1948) Venecia, Puente de Rialto Fiat (1950)

Piazza d'Italia (1952) The Fall – Via Crucis (1947–54) Venezia, Isola di San Giorgio (1955) Salambò su un cavallo impennato (1956) Metaphysical Interior with Biscuits (1958) Piazza d'Italia (1962) Cornipedes, (1963) La mia mano sinistra, (1963), Chianciano Museum of Art Manichino (1964) Ettore e Andromaca (1966) The Return of Ulysses, Interno Metafisico con Nudo Anatomico and Mysterious Baths – Flight Toward the Sea (1968) Il rimorso di Oreste, La Biga Invincibile and Solitudine della Gente di Circo (1969) Orfeo Trovatore Stanco, Intero Metafisico and Muse with Broken Column (1970) Metaphysical Interior with Setting Sun (1971) Sole sul cavalletto (1973) Mobili e rocce in una stanza, La Mattina ai Bagni misteriosi, Piazza d'Italia con Statua Equestre, La mattina ai bagni misteriosi and Ettore e Andromaca (1973) Pianto d'amore – Ettore e Andromaca and The Sailors' Barracks (1974)

HALA KHAYAT Hala Khayat is the Head of Sales at Christie's Middle East. She has a BA in Fine Arts & Visual Communications from the University of Damascus, Syria and an MA in Design Studies from Central St Martin's College of Art & Design, London. She has held a variety of roles in the world of art and journalism, including working as an Art Consultant for galleries in Damascus. She is a regular speaker on the history of Arab art and the Middle Eastern Art Market.

It is not often that a private collection dedicates itself entirely to providing a full overview of almost a century of art from one region. However, during many long years living in the United Kingdom, Syrian-British couple Rona and Walid Jalanbo viewed art collecting as a natural link back to their heritage and culture.

When the Jalanbos began acquiring art some 30 years ago, they did so with a view that Middle Eastern art - particularly that from Syria - was beautiful, rich in diversity, and lacking basic support from the international art world.

From early on, Rona and Walid were devoted patrons of contemporary art from the region, encouraging many young artists early in their careers with a buying power that enabled them to continue to plan exhibitions and create. All works were bought with an insightful curatorial eye – they meshed important modern art pieces with pieces from the developing contemporary art scene.

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The more I got to know and work with the Jalanbos, the more I saw that they were choosing works with a larger vision of eventually setting up a public art foundation.

The idea was that this space would one day develop into a creative hub for all young enthusiasts to come, share ideas, and take inspiration from the works on display. The plans and location for the creative space were in order but were sadly halted when the Syrian conflict began in 2011. Until that point, the collection had only been on view privately in the homes of Rona and Walid. It was then that their son, Khaled, took the initiative to archive and document the collection and

replace the plans for the physical domain with this website.

The importance of a collection of this scale going public cannot be overstated. Not only is it unearthing modern Middle Eastern masterpieces by artists such as Chaura, Moudarres, Kayyali and Yagan that have never been publically viewed before, but it is also shedding light on contemporary and emerging artists from our region and increasing their reach. This is a tremendously exciting project for everyone in the Middle Eastern art world, particularly given the educational and forward-thinking direction it is taking.

Ismail al-Shaikhly is considered an early pioneer of Iraqi modern art. He developed a unique style that resulted from a diverse set of influences. His mature works are instantly recognizable for their abstracted human figures, vibrant color combinations, and obscured backgrounds. However, there were many iterations of alShaikhly's favored subject matter, Iraqi village life, over the course of his career. Like others of his generation of artists, al-Shaikhly was a versatile painter who experimented with various modes of representation. As a result, his oeuvre exhibits a range of stylistic references and negotiations.

in 1951. He returned to Baghdad and was an influential member of the Pioneers Group, an artist society founded by Faiq Hassan. He became the group's leader in 1962 after Hassan stepped down. AlShaikhly was also a founding member of the Society of Iraqi Plastic Artists and joined the Iraqi Artist Society. Professionally, his most distinguished position was as the director general of the Directorate of Plastic Arts in Baghdad.

Al-Shaikhly's early work reflects the influence of his mentor, Faiq Hassan, and the artistic production of these two painters has often been compared. Indeed, there are striking similarities between the Al-Shaikhly was educated at the work of the master and pupil. They Institute of Fine Art in Baghdad both favored the Iraqi countryside and was a member of the first and village life as subject matter. graduating class of 1945. At the Likewise, the quaint, institute, the artist studied under impressionistic treatment of people Faiq Hassan, one of the leading and nature in each of their figures in the Iraqi art world, and canvases hints at a close didactic was his most gifted student. After relationship between the artists. graduating, al-Shaikhly became its However, this resemblance first alumnus to study abroad, characterizes an early period in alattending the École Nationale Shaikhly's career, 13 SupÊrieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris

after which he would venture out into his own artistic realm. His mature style is abstract, demonstrating the artist's interest in form and color at the willing expense of narrative but not subject matter.

Women figure prominently as a central theme in al-Shaikhly's work. Throughout his various experiments with representations, he remained faithful to the feminine form. He seems to have been interested in the exploration of a singular subject, perhaps desiring to unleash its aesthetic potential. It is significant that he selected a subject that has occupied artistic expression since the daybreak of humanity, the female body.

individual attitudes along with their homogenous shapes. There is a rhythm implied in the repetition of ovals, squares, and strong curved lines that reflects the pace of the women's daily lives, as well as the artist's interest in patterning within the Islamic ornamental tradition.

In the artist's more iconic paintings, produced in the last two decades of the twentieth century, the female groups move in and out of a fading background. His subjects seem to be wanderers in a hazy landscape, sometimes dotted with triangular shapes hinting at tent structures and sometimes obscured altogether. The women in these later works occupy huddled spaces, identifiable only by the Iraqi abaya draped over their bodies. Color occupies a premier place in each of Oftentimes painting them in these canvases as he reduces his groupings, the artist's females figures to flesh-colored circles, gaze out at the viewer with bright rectangular bodies, and black pointed stares. Simplified with coverings. These expressions are oval faces and generic bodies, filled with kinetic energy. By virtue they seem to be in various states of the hurried brushstrokes and of coming and going: to the color highlights, the feminine forms mosque, to the souq, to some seem to vibrate even as the domestic chore. Yet they pause for background fades. the painter to capture their

Al-Shaikhly exhibited his work prodigiously throughout the world. He actively participated in Baghdadi exhibitions by the Pioneers and other artist organizations in which he was a part. Thus his work was highly visible domestically.

Al-Shaikhly was also a part of several group exhibitions abroad and his work was displayed in cities like Paris, London, Ankara, Belgrade, Madrid, Jakarta, and Delhi.

In 1955 and 1958, al-Shaikhly's artwork toured counties like China, Russia, Bulgaria, Poland, and India.

The artist's paintings were also widely appreciated in the Arab world as he exhibited in almost every Arab capital. Al-Shaikhly's works are held in the collections of Mathaf: The Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar and at the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Art in Amman.

Exhibitions ​1976 ​Against Discrimination, Baghdad, Iraq ​1974 ​Arab Biennial, Baghdad, Iraq ​1958 ​Contemporary Iraqi Art Tour: China, Russia, Bulgaria, Poland, former Yugoslavia ​1955 ​Contemporary Iraqi Art Tour: India ​1954 - 1956 ​Al-Mansour Club, Baghdad, Iraq ​1953 ​Exhibition in Alexandria, Egypt ​1952 ​All 22 exhibitions of the Pioneers, National Museum of Modern Art, Al-Riwaq Gallery, and the Institute of Fine Art, Baghdad, Iraq ​_____ ​Exhibition in Beirut, Lebanon ​1946 ​Exhibition of the Society of the Friends of Art, Baghdad, Iraq

Shakir Hassan Al Said (1925– 2004), an Iraqi painter, sculptor and writer, is considered one of Iraq's most innovative and influential artists. An artist, philosopher, art critic and art historian, he was actively involved in the formation of two important art groups that influenced the direction of post-colonial art in Iraq. He, and the art groups in which he was involved, shaped the modern Iraqi art movement and bridged the gap between modernity and heritage.

His theories charted a new Arabic art aesthetic which allowed for valuations of regional art through lenses that were uniquely Arabic rather than Western.

"On my way from school, I used to see scores of faces, brown faces, painful and toiling faces. How close they were to my heart! They pressed me and I passed them again and again. They suffered and I felt their suffering. The peasants with their loose belts were pricked by thorns. They were so close to my heart!"

In 1948, he received a degree in social science from the Higher Institute of Teachers in Baghdad and in 1954, a diploma in painting from the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad where he was taught by Jawad Saleem.He continued his studies at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris until 1959,where he was taught by Biography Raymond Legueult.[8] During his Al Said was born in Samawa, stay in Paris, he discovered Western Iraq; a rural area. He spent most modern art in galleries and of his adult life living and working Sumerian art at the Louvre.After his in Bagdad.His rural upbringing return to Baghdad in 1959, Al Said was an important source of studied the work of Yahya ibn inspiration for his art and his Mahmud al-Wasiti,sufismand philosophies. He wrote about his Mansur Al-Hallaj.He gradually daily trek to school in the abandoned figurative expressions following terms: and centered his compositions on Arabic calligraphy.

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With Jawad Saleem, he co-founded Jama'et Baghdad lil Fann al-Hadith (Baghdad Modern Art Group) in 1951; one of the most unusual arts movements in the Middle East in the post–World War II,that aimed to achieve an artistic approach both modern and embracing of tradition.This specific approach was called Istilham al-turath (Seeking inspiration from tradition), considered as "the basic point of departure, to achieve through modern styles, a cultural vision".These artists were inspired by the 13th-century Baghdad School and the work of calligraphers and illustrators such as Yahya Al-Wasiti who was active in Baghdad in the 1230s. They believed that the Mongol invasion of 1258 represented a "break in the chain of pictorial Iraqi art" and wanted to recover lost traditions.After the death of Saleem in 1961, al-Said headed the group.

Al Said wrote the manifesto for the Baghdad Modern Art Group and read it at the group's first exhibition in 1951. It was the

first art manifesto to be published in Iraq. Scholars often consider this event to the birth of the Iraqi modern art movement.

Al Said also wrote the manifesto for an art group he founded in 1971.

After suffering from a spiritual crisis, the artist broke away from the Baghdad Modern Art group and formed the Al Bu'd al Wahad (or the One Dimension Group)", which was deeply infused with Al Said's theories about the place of art in nationalism.The objectives of the One Dimension Group were multidimensional and complex. At the most basic level, the group rejected two and three-two dimensional artwork in favour of a single "inner dimension". In practice, a single inner dimension was difficult to manifest because most artworks are produced on two-dimensional surfaces. At a more profound level, "one dimension" refers to "eternity". Al Said explained:

"From a philosophical point of view, the One-Dimension is eternity, or an extension of the past to the time before the existence of pictorial surface; to the non-surface.

Our consciousness of the world is a relative presence. It is our selfexistence while our absence is our eternal presence."

art movement. Hurufiyah refers to the attempt by artists to combine traditional art forms, notably calligraphy as a graphic element within a contemporary Al Said actively searched for artwork.Hurufiyah artists rejected relationships between time and Western art concepts, and instead space; and for a visual language searched for a new visual languages that would connect Iraq's deep art that reflected their own culture and traditions with modern art heritage. These artists successfully methods and materials. The transformed calligraphy into a incorporation of callij (calligraphy) modern aesthetic, which was both letters into modern artworks was contemporary and indigenous. an important aspect of this. The letter became part of Al Said's Al Said, used his writing, lectures transition from figurative art to and his involvement in various art abstract art. Arabic calligraphy groups to shape the direction of was charged with intellectual and the modern Iraqi art movement esoteric Sufi meaning, in that it and bridged the gap between was an explicit reference to a modernity and heritage.In so doing, Medieval theology where letters Al Said "charted a new Arabowere seen as primordial signifiers Islamic art aesthetic, and thus and manipulators of the cosmos. initiated a possible alternative for art valuating for local and regional This group was part of a broader art other than those allowed Islamic art movement that through an exclusionary Western emerged independently across canon of art history."

North Africa and parts of Asia in the 1950s and known as the hurufiyah

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