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Metaphysical Painting, a short-lived but significant Italian movement, sprang from the chance meeting 1917 of Carra, de Chirico and the latter's brother, the poet (and occasional painter) Alberto Savinio, in a military hos- pital in Ferrara. The two painters already knew of each other and formed an imme- diate alliance, being able to paint in the hos- pital, and were encouraged by Savinio's poetry. Carra had been among the leading painters of Futurism. De Chirico had been working in Paris, admired by Apolli naire and avant-garde artists as a painter of mysterious urban scenes and still lifes. Metaphysical Painting sprang from their urge to explore the imagined inner life of familiar objects when represented out of their explanatory contexts: their solidity, their separateness in the space allotted to them, the secret dialogue that may take place between them. This alertness to the simplicity of ordinary things "which points to a higher, more hidden state of being" (Carra) was linked to an awareness of such values in the great figures of early Italian painting, notably Giotto and Uccello about whom Carra had written in 1915. Their art, normally seen as purposeful naturalistic representation of figures, objects and actions in a controlled scenic space, could also seem mysteriously still and removed from the ordinary world; in the midst of war it offered a poetic language both in-turned and strong and a corrective to the disruptive, fragmenting tenden- cies within Modernism. This desire to reattach his art to the great Italian past was stronger in Carra, whose paintings of the time are also more economical and focused than de Chirico's; the latter continued to explore the enigmatic nature of the daily world in a more wide-ranging manner. The two artists were together for only a few months in the spring and summer of 1917. Other painters were affected by their example and ideas, most notably Morandi. The movement, as such, may be said to have dissolved by 1920 but its rever- berations were felt for a long time, contributing both to the more poetic aspects of Surrealism and to the revival of classicism in the painting of Sironi and others in the 1920S. Taken From: http://www.nelepets.com/art/20c/1910-1919/1917-pittura%20metaphicica.htm They aimed to depict an alternative reality which engaged most immediately with the unconscious mind. In this style of painting, an illogical reality seemed credible. Using a sort of alternative logic, Carrà and de Chirico juxtaposed various ordinary subjects - typically including starkly rendered buildings, trains, and mannequins. "Mystery" is the most familiar word of de Chirico. He wrote the following: "there is much more mystery in the shadow of a man walking on a sunny day, than in all religions of the world". There were other artists associated with the movement including Giorgio Morandi , Mario Sironi , and Filippo De Pisis . Their alliance lasted less than a year and in 1919 all members of this group went into copying the paintings by Old Master s. Pittura Metafisica provided significant impetus for the development of Dada and Surrealism . Their main slogan was following: the essence of things can be conceived not by reason but only using intuition. Lisa Wray discovers Giorgio De Chirico 77 years later "De Chirico’s ideas closely resembled my own personal mind-set and vision ..." Lisa is one of the earliest pioneers of the visual graphic media arts, developing her unique style more than two decades ago in 1983, when the Internet and the Digital Age were just dawning. Wray describes a day where she had just completed several pieces of art, and was wondering what to call her style. This led her to the book, Artists on Art, an anthology edited by Robert Goldwater and Marco Reves from the end of the Middle Ages to the Second World War (14th - 20th centuries). As Lisa began reading what the artists had written in their role of artist, she was drawn to Giorgio DeChircio, and felt that his thoughts and ideas most closely resembled her own. She was surprised to learn that his "Metaphysical Painting", which he later abandoned "must be counted among the most original and influential of twentieth-century styles." Wray has sought to resurrect the style and decided to call her work "Renaissance of Metaphysical Imagery®". Prototypes were made for each work from color copies, color photos, and/or film negatives made in her graphic arts darkroom. In 1990 she visited Raphael Digital Transparencies in Houston Texas, and Dodge Color Laboratories in Washington D.C. to study the viability of assembling her first two prototypes, “Brew of Life” and “Fantasy”, on the now considered archaic computers of the late 80s and early 90s. Lisa’s first works were assembled by Dodge Color Laboratories on a Superset machine that was first developed by the Department of Defense. Her final art was archived on 1" magnetic tape, and then output as an 11x14” color film transparency. The cost was $300.00 per hour at the time, and the end result was a 1" reel. Many of Lisa’s early pieces were hand drawn with traditional media such as colored pencil, pen and ink, watercolor, acrylic and oil paints. Years later, when computers started to become accessible (desktop publishing), Lisa was intrigued with the new software and digital tools that started to emerge on the market, allowing her to explore her diversity in the source of her inspiration. “I spent about three years working with some of my traditional artwork, scanning it into the computer and experimenting with the various tools, plug-ins and color controls. At that time, the only archival printing media output that I could find was called an Oil Based Dye Transfer.” Lisa relies on the discovery of life to influence her pieces. “I rely on music, literature, artwork, and people to inspire me, reaching inside myself for answers.” Lisa often finds motivation from some of her most beautiful visual pieces in nature. “I find that natural objects, such as skeletal bones, pieces of wood, feathers, flowers, and even death itself are a source of creative inspiration. My goals are beauty, harmony and symmetry.” Brew of Life” and “Fantasy” required five hours each to render on the Dodge Color Laboratories Superset computer. Lisa continued to search for a way to output the art from her color transparency, but at the time, she could only find one truly archival medium, an oil based dye transfer, called a “Repligraph”, a continuous tone photographic process that uses oil-based dyes and transfers and applies them directly to canvas. Lisa would paint over the transfers with oils to bring out various highlight areas. About a year later, Lisa found the “Collectors Color Print” process which purported to be archival 500+ years which proved to be cost prohibitive. Tradigital art,” Lisa says, “is a relatively new word that describes a new type of fine art that combines traditional painting, drawing and photography with digital media (software and digital tools). I like to think of it as a bridge that unites the past, present, and future into a completely new form.” Lisa usually begins each piece of art with a “subject”--the original source of inspiration and then forms the background around the subject which she carefully and meticulously changes, until she is satisfied with the final piece. The final art does not exist until it prints out of the computer. You might say that the original is an illusion, as it exists as mathematical information stored inside the computer. It's really more like photography in that way. You could think of the digital information as a negative - and each one that prints out is like a photograph printed from the negative - except that the information is completely abstract. Noted Astrologer, Joseph Polansky writes of Lisa Wray’s artistic style, “Many of her works are of the Mandala style—hieroglyphs of wholeness–nature forms seen in a new way. But many are reminiscent of Dali and his surrealism– we are in another space, where nature forms and human forms coexist and tell a dream like story." Every completed work Lisa creates is the result of meditation—using the digital medium—the computer as her canvas. “The final resulting imagery is a picture of the subconscious thoughts that I receive during this meditation.” To see more of Lisa Wray's "Renaissance of Metaphysical Imagery®", please visit http://www.lisawray.com |
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