Alberto Savinio

Alberto Savinio , born as Andrea Francesco Alberto de Chirico (25 August 1891 – 5 May 1952) was a Greek-Italian writer, painter, musician, journalist, essayist, playwright, set designer and composer. He was the younger brother of 'metaphysical' painter Giorgio de Chirico. His work often dealt with philosophical and psychological themes, and he was also heavily concerned with the philosophy of art.

Throughout his life, Savinio composed five operas, and authored at least forty-seven books, including multiple autobiographies and memoirs. He also extensively wrote and produced works for the theatre. His work received mixed reviews during his lifetime. This was often due to his generally pervasive use of modernist techniques. He was influenced by Apollinaire, Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob, and Fernand Léger, and had a significant influence on the surrealist movement.

Life

Birth and family Born in Athens, Greece, Andrea De Chirico was the third child of Evaristo De Chirico and Gemma Cervetto De Chirico (a Genoese noble). At the time of his birth, Andrea's parents were living as Italian expatriates in Greece while his father worked on the Greek railway system as an engineer for the Societé des Chemins de Fer de la Thessalie. His elder brother, three years his senior, was the renowned artist Giorgio de Chirico. Andrea also had an elder sister named Adele (or Adelaide), who died six months before his birth. Later in his life, Andrea would reflect upon his foreign birth as a special opportunity to determine his own destiny through the determination of his own national identity.

World War I Shortly after the outbreak of World War I, Savinio and his brother returned to Italy in order to enlist in the Italian army. After enlisting, the pair was sent to the military hospital in Ferrara, Italy, where they met Carlo Carrà. This group of three, under the influence of Giovanni Papini, then proceeded to found the artistic movement Scuola Metafisica (Metaphysical Painting). Scuola Metafisica became known as one of the most significant artistic experiences of twentieth-century Italy. In 1917, Savinio was sent to Greece as an interpreter for Italian troops. While stationed there, Savinio gained the chance to rediscover his childhood play-world of Greece, and the influence can be seen in his first published novel, Hermaphrodito. Hermaphrodito was published in 1918, and like Les Chants de la mi-mort, was a multilingual piece, intertwining languages as well as prose and poetry. Hermaphrodito was also a meld of autobiography, fiction, thoughts and fantasies; it has even been called a war journal, as it often deals with specific experiences from World War I. Savinio claimed a very personal connection to the novel, once stating, "Tutto che io sono nasce da li. Tutto che ho fatto viene da li" (Everything that I am springs from there. Everything that I have done comes from there.). After World War I, Savinio relocated to Rome. In 1920, he completed (Tragedy of Childhood), a primarily autobiographical collection of episodes illuminating the disconnect between the adult and juvenile experience and perception of the world. Each of the episodes in Tragedia del l'infanzia presents a situation in which the world of adults and "artistic" creativity is contrasted with the world of childhood imaginings. Tragedia del l'infanzia was finally published in 1937. 1925 saw the publication of his second novel, (The Haunted House). Set in 1910 Paris, the novel tells the story of the protagonist-narrator, who is apparently renting a room from a typical bourgeois house, which Savinio describes as being "inhabited by Ghosts". The novel is, in many ways, a darkly comic and grotesque revue of modern life. The scenes of the novel, are at once hyper real and fantastically abstract, with great attention being given to the unconscious.

There is evidence to suggest, however, that their relationship frayed in later life. Although their deceased sister Adele appears in and is mentioned frequently in Savinio's memoirs and autobiographies, Giorgio fails to appear at all in any of them.

Critical review

Judgments of Savinio's work varied wildly depending on the phase of his life and the reviewer. Many of Savinio's most critically praised works are also amongst his most disliked and misunderstood. This is largely due to Savinio's frequent and controversial use of modernist techniques for creative expression.

From a very young age, Savinio's piano playing impressed critics nearly unanimously. Guillaume Apollinaire said of it:

Judgment of his body of work as a whole was seen in 1954, when the Venice Biennale created a room devoted solely to Savinio's artistic legacy.

According to the art historian Jean Clair, the works of Savinio and his brother Giorgio de Chirico were the basis of both the surrealist movement and magic realism.