Art: Sideshow

Painter Giorgio de Chirico may be considered old hat at 62, but he wears his bowler with a difference. As the once-reigning genius of Italy's avant-garde "metaphysical school," De Chirico foreshadowed surrealism before World War I, then abandoned such enigmatic art to peddle a perfectly understandable brand of neoclassicism.

As a painter, De Chirico long ago lost his punch; as a peddler, he still has plenty of push. In June, the superannuated master proved it with an eye-catching ad for Fiat automobiles (TIME, July 3). Last week he was again honking his own horn at a conservative sideshow to Venice's vast international roundup of modern art, the "Biennale" (TIME, June 12).

De Chirico's "Anti-Biennale" consisted of 79 paintings by himself and a handful of his friends. They kept their show open evenings, drew crowds of tourists and even an encouraging number of buyers. Exponents of modern art were getting "restless and worried," De Chirico trumpeted, "because of my activities to create a renaissance in painting that will restore art to its true masterfulness and beauty . . . With great strides the day is coming when this horrible bestiality called modern art ... will give up its soul to the devil."

Most critics ignored both De Chirico's sideshow and his rasping taunts, but the influential Italian weekly Europeo struck back: "De Chirico's [new paintings] are dry, trite, and the images toneless . . . It is not enough to wish in words for a renaissance . . ."