The unexpected encounter of a rubber glove, a green ball and the head from the classical statue of the Apollo Belvedere gives rise to one of the most compelling paintings in the history of modernist art: Giorgio de Chirico's -The Song of Love- (1914). De Chirico made his career in Paris in the years before World War I, combining his nostalgia for ancient Mediterranean culture with his fascination for the curios found in Parisian shop windows. Beloved by the Surrealists, this uncanny image exemplifies de Chirico's radical -metaphysical- painting, which creates a disturbing sense of unreality,...

The impact of the melancholy, metaphysical art of Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) had much to do with his unique ability to see antiquity anew, and to locate its props in mysterious, atemporal dreamscapes. De Chirico loaded his depictions of Greek and Roman statues and architecture with muted intimations of allegory, locking away their meanings in foreboding enigmas that were among the earliest articulations of the Surrealist project. Published for a 2013 exhibition at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, Giorgio de Chirico: Myth and Archaelogy gathers a selection of lesser-known...