Hector And Andromache

Giorgio de Chirico is best known as an Italian "metaphysical painter," associated alongside but usually quarrelling with the Surrealists. By "metaphysical," his contemporaries meant something beyond the universe governed by the laws of physics. "A work of art must escape all human limits: logic and common sense will only interfere," de Chirico wrote in 1913.This painting was product of both the Cubist and Surrealist schools. Surrealism drew heavily on dream-like objects, geometry, and simple structures. Cubism made use of representational imagery through heavy use of geometric and slanted perspectives. The subject of this painting is from Greek mythology--Hector’s farewell to his wife, Andromache, before his battle against Achilles. De Chirico depicts the doomed couple with the two figures in the oil painting. The left figure is Hector, given the masculine breadth of the shoulders and the tapering abdomen. The right figure is Andromache: she is composed of more feminine, organic and curved geometric shapes and has pronounced hip bones.