The Solitary Poet (Il poeta solitario)

Giorgio de Chirico’s bronze sculptures carry the same softness and metaphysical intensity that characterize his paintings. The figure of the mannequin—as poet or philosopher—first emerged in his work between 1913 and 1915, during his years in Paris, when he painted a portrait of his close friend Guillaume Apollinaire. The motif may have drawn inspiration from «Les Chants de la Mi-Mort» (“Songs of the Half-Dead”), a dramatic poem by his brother, who became known by the pseudonym Alberto Savinio. At its center is a voiceless, eyeless, faceless man.

“The seated mannequin,” De Chirico would later write in ‘The Birth of the Mannequin’ (1938), “is destined to inhabit rooms, especially the corners of rooms; open air does not suit him. This is where they are at home; where they flourish and generously display the gifts of their ineffable and mysterious poetry.”

“The Solitary Poet,” cast in bronze in 1970, embodies this ethos. Similar to how Orpheus or ancient lyric poets such as Menander were depicted, the figure is seated. A small architectural structure embedded in its torso—suggestive of a temple or a tomb façade—alongside a toppled column, recalls the internal landscapes of “The Solitary Archaeologist” (1937).

Unlike other allegorical figures in De Chirico’s work, the noble poet is entirely alone, his muse conspicuously absent. He dwells in a space of timeless solitude and meditative silence, echoing the metaphysical stillness that defines De Chirico’s enigmatic visual world.