Page 23 - Studio International - February 1968

ventional means to so modern and obviously Freudian an distorted perspective, the open trap, the little girl bowling
end. The awkwardness might be a part of the intention, her hoop towards a menacing and masculine shadow;
but the gaucheness and naivety of so many of Chirico's one cannot escape the interpretation once it has been
works hardly seem consistent with a Machiavellian or made. And there are times when the whole thing gets
self-consciously analytic artistic personality. Ernst has all out of hand. A drawing in the exhibition, La gioia of 1913
along been thoroughly conscious of the sexual potency of (which incidentally illustrates the origin, in a Turinese
his images (his autobiographical writings make that point statue, of the menacing shadow), contains a collection of
quite clear), and has employed random means of composi- emblems which provide so convincing a vindication of the
tion only to give greater freedom to his doodling psyche— Freudian morphology as to make the 'Young Girl's
with marvellous effect. Bellmer's obsessions and his sexual Diary' look like a novelette* : guns firing, chimneys
stance have always been easily categorized. There is a thrusting, trains puffing, etc. And yet all these things are
story, I think by Dürrenmatt, about a fat German there in Turin: the station in the centre, the statues, the
husband who eats chocolate truffles and carves little ubiquitous arcades—albeit more heavily ornamented, less
girls with a cut-throat razor. If it is easy to identify stark than in the paintings—the factory chimneys on the
Bellmer's pose in relation to the sadomasochistic ten- outskirts (and the Fiat factory was going strong in 1910),
dency in German culture, how should we interpret de the encircling mountains. It is the selection, the juxta-
Chirico's Mystery and melancholy of a street? The fantasy is positions and the collage of elements taken out of context,
only too easily seen to its conclusion: the claustrophobic, that startle and intrigue us.

Hight
Giorgio di Chirico
The mysterious swimmer
c. 1929
oil on canvas
24 x 20 in.
Coll: Rosina Jaffe, Turin

Facing page
Top
Joan Miró,
Time and the leaf 1924
pencil, tempera and
collage on paper
18¾ x 24⅜ in.
Galleria Narciso,
Turin
Bottom
Max Ernst
Two nude girls or The idols 1926
oil and black chalk on canvas
28¾ x 21½ in.
Coll: Simone Collinet,
Paris