The Uncertainty of the Poet (L'Incertitude du poète)

© DACS 2024. Image credit: Tate

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De Chirico’s quiet square evokes the classical arcades and statuary of antiquity (the sculpture is a torso of Aphrodite). In contrast, the passing train and perishable bananas suggest a sense of the contemporary and immediate. The distorted perspective and shadows undermine the conventions of pictorial space and time. De Chirico’s early works were enthusiastically embraced by the Surrealists, who saw in them a dream-like parallel existence. The poet Paul Eluard wrote: ‘these squares are outwardly similar to existing squares and yet we have never seen them ... We are in an immense, previously inconceivable, world.’

Tate

Art UK Founder Partner

More information
Title

The Uncertainty of the Poet (L'Incertitude du poète)

Date

1913

Medium

Oil on canvas

Measurements

H 106 x W 94 cm

Accession number

T04109

Acquisition method

Purchased with the assistance of the Art Fund (Eugene Cremetti Fund), the Carroll Donner Bequest, the Friends of the Tate Gallery and members of the public 1985

Work type

Painting

Inscription description

date inscribed

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