(Athens 1891–1952 Rome)
Partenza degli Argonauti, c. 1933, signed Savinio, oil and mixed media on canvas, 60 x 73.5 cm, framed, (AR)

Photo certificate issued by Ruggero Savinio, Rome, 27 October 2015

Provenance:
European Private Collection

“In the books and paintings of Alberto Savinio as well as in those of his brother Giorgio de Chirico, we see a proliferation of departures and arrivals, desertions and returns, stations and doors, trains and ships (…), attributes which all have a more general function. They express the archetype of the journey, within which, particularly in Savinio’s universe, a privileged place is especially reserved for the myth of the Argonauts.”
(Vanni Bramanti, in “L’Argonauta seduto”, p. 33)

Alberto Savinio was born and raised in Volos, where he was trained as a musician. After his father’s death in 1905, he and his brother Giorgio de Chirico first moved to Munich, where he continued to study music, then to Paris, where he was able to gain access to the most important cultural milieus and come into contact with several exponents of the artistic avant-garde movements, such as Apollinaire and Guillaume. He returned to Italy in 1915 to serve in the army, but after being declared unfit for military service he was first transferred to Ferrara and subsequently Thessaloniki.
In 1923 he moved to Rome, where he founded the Compagnia del Teatro dell’arte and where he also met his wife, whom he would marry three years later and with whom he would move back to Paris, before definitively returning to Italy in 1933. The themes of travel, departure and abandonment are recurring factors in his life and constitute especially evocative, identifying elements in his artistic oeuvre. It is probably the link with Jason, the Greek hero who left Volos in search of the Golden Fleece, that inspired Savinio’s personal reinterpretation of the myth in “La partenza degli argonauti” [“The Departure of the Argonauts”]. Savinio identifies with Jason, who becomes the archetype of the man who does not hesitate before the mysteries of travels, adventures and quests, and whom the artists transposes into his art, translating the myth into an everyday experience and depriving it of its sacred aura. “Volos, which is both Jason’s city and the city of the De Chirico brothers’ childhood, along with the Argonauts’ sea, represent for Alberto Savinio the poetry of risk, the precariousness of chance. They are a metaphor for an individual who did not want to hesitate before the unknown of an otherworldly voyage and before the mysteries of those far off countries (…) The journey of the hero along miraculous paths towards something extraordinary, towards adventures and secrets. (Vanni Bramanti, in “L’Argonauta seduto”, p. 36)

The theme of the reduction of myth to everyday life that is visible in the present painting also recurs in the chapter “The Departure of the Argonaut” in Savinio’s literary work “Hermaphrodito”: the Argonaut is none other than the author himself, who is transferred from Ferrara to Thessaloniki along with his military unit. His artist friend, Carlo Carrà, represents it thus in a drawing from 1917 (“La partenza dell’argonauta Savinio” [“The Departure of the Argonaut Savinio”]): a young Jason with glasses and wearing vaguely military attire, sitting immobile in a somewhat metaphysical interior… a kind of modern but inactive Argonaut at his table.

The place depicted in the present work contains a clear echo of the Introduction to Savinio’s “Hermaphrodito”: “... Behind the white houses on the shore, a chain of low hills runs as far as the promontory that marks the highest point dominating the landscape; on its top rise the ruins of a small Venetian castle, like imploring stone figures, akin to a solid ghost emerging from the crater of a volcano.” Introduction, p. XXII. For Savinio the sea, which is an intense blue-green colour, is a metaphor for movement and transformation, for the passage between dream and reality and, therefore, between life and death. The sea represents the energy of existence, but at the same time also its risks and dangers: whilst it can sometimes manifests itself as a quiet refuge, in the present work the marine waters give a somewhat more unsettling impression.

We are left to decipher the large head that emerges behind the mountainous cliffs and which cautiously observes the departure of the Argonauts. The large head reappears in many of Savinio’s compositions and generally represents the sun or the dawn (or even the Archangel Gabriel, bringer of good news, as in his “Annunciazione” [“Annunciation”] of 1932 in the Boschi Collection). It often evokes a positive significance, a mythological allure and a warm familiarity. It can thus be regarded as a benevolent entity which, with its gaze directed beyond the edge of the scene, watches over and protects the heroes as they embark upon the new adventure that awaits them beyond their native soil.

Nonetheless, applying a different interpretation of the subject and, in fact, taking Savinio’s own words, this looming head can also be seen to represent an oppressive metaphysical presence: “...my parents had said that the Eye of God followed us everywhere and that it was not possible to hide from its gaze, not even in the most hidden and secret place… In Greek churches, especially the smallest and poorest ones... the Eye of God is always seen in the rudimentary decoration on the walls. It is enclosed within a triangle and its yellow colour expresses the idea of gold. It is surrounded by black eyelashes, which remind one of the legs of some kind of monstrous insect. It has an enormous, black, unreflecting pupil which is fixed in the centre of the white of the eye. The idea of this divine and persecuting optical instrument had attained an almost physical reality for me. What effects has this childhood obsession with the Eye of God had on my psychological and mental life? Most certainly the effects have been profound and indelible since, in many of my literary images, but especially in my pictures, the theme of the Eye recurs so insistently…”.
(Alberto Savinio)

A rare, special feature of the canvas is its hexagonal shape, with “trimmed” upper corners that seem to allude to the famous “Annunciazione” [“Annunciation”] of 1932, where only the upper left corner is cut; a further similarity is the disproportionately large face observing the scene.

Photo certificate issued by Ruggero Savinio, Rome, 27 October 2015

Provenance:
European Private Collection

“In the books and paintings of Alberto Savinio as well as in those of his brother Giorgio de Chirico, we see a proliferation of departures and arrivals, desertions and returns, stations and doors, trains and ships (…), attributes which all have a more general function. They express the archetype of the journey, within which, particularly in Savinio’s universe, a privileged place is especially reserved for the myth of the Argonauts.” (Vanni Bramanti, in “L’Argonauta seduto”, p. 33)

Alberto Savinio was born and raised in Volos, where he was trained as a musician. After his father’s death in 1905, he and his brother Giorgio de Chirico first moved to Munich, where he continued to study music, then to Paris, where he was able to gain access to the most important cultural milieus and come into contact with several exponents of the artistic avant-garde movements, such as Apollinaire and Guillaume. He returned to Italy in 1915 to serve in the army, but after being declared unfit for military service he was first transferred to Ferrara and subsequently Thessaloniki.
In 1923 he moved to Rome, where he founded the Compagnia del Teatro dell’arte and where he also met his wife, whom he would marry three years later and with whom he would move back to Paris, before definitively returning to Italy in 1933. The themes of travel, departure and abandonment are recurring factors in his life and constitute especially evocative, identifying elements in his artistic oeuvre. It is probably the link with Jason, the Greek hero who left Volos in search of the Golden Fleece, that inspired Savinio’s personal reinterpretation of the myth in “La partenza degli argonauti” [“The Departure of the Argonauts”]. Savinio identifies with Jason, who becomes the archetype of the man who does not hesitate before the mysteries of travels, adventures and quests, and whom the artists transposes into his art, translating the myth into an everyday experience and depriving it of its sacred aura. “Volos, which is both Jason’s city and the city of the De Chirico brothers’ childhood, along with the Argonauts’ sea, represent for Alberto Savinio the poetry of risk, the precariousness of chance. They are a metaphor for an individual who did not want to hesitate before the unknown of an otherworldly voyage and before the mysteries of those far off countries (…) The journey of the hero along miraculous paths towards something extraordinary, towards adventures and secrets. (Vanni Bramanti, in “L’Argonauta seduto”, p. 36)

The theme of the reduction of myth to everyday life that is visible in the present painting also recurs in the chapter “The Departure of the Argonaut” in Savinio’s literary work “Hermaphrodito”: the Argonaut is none other than the author himself, who is transferred from Ferrara to Thessaloniki along with his military unit. His artist friend, Carlo Carrà, represents it thus in a drawing from 1917 (“La partenza dell’argonauta Savinio” [“The Departure of the Argonaut Savinio”]): a young Jason with glasses and wearing vaguely military attire, sitting immobile in a somewhat metaphysical interior… a kind of modern but inactive Argonaut at his table.

The place depicted in the present work contains a clear echo of the Introduction to Savinio’s “Hermaphrodito”: “... Behind the white houses on the shore, a chain of low hills runs as far as the promontory that marks the highest point dominating the landscape; on its top rise the ruins of a small Venetian castle, like imploring stone figures, akin to a solid ghost emerging from the crater of a volcano.” Introduction, p. XXII. For Savinio the sea, which is an intense blue-green colour, is a metaphor for movement and transformation, for the passage between dream and reality and, therefore, between life and death. The sea represents the energy of existence, but at the same time also its risks and dangers: whilst it can sometimes manifests itself as a quiet refuge, in the present work the marine waters give a somewhat more unsettling impression.

We are left to decipher the large head that emerges behind the mountainous cliffs and which cautiously observes the departure of the Argonauts. The large head reappears in many of Savinio’s compositions and generally represents the sun or the dawn (or even the Archangel Gabriel, bringer of good news, as in his “Annunciazione” [“Annunciation”] of 1932 in the Boschi Collection). It often evokes a positive significance, a mythological allure and a warm familiarity. It can thus be regarded as a benevolent entity which, with its gaze directed beyond the edge of the scene, watches over and protects the heroes as they embark upon the new adventure that awaits them beyond their native soil.

Nonetheless, applying a different interpretation of the subject and, in fact, taking Savinio’s own words, this looming head can also be seen to represent an oppressive metaphysical presence: “...my parents had said that the Eye of God followed us everywhere and that it was not possible to hide from its gaze, not even in the most hidden and secret place… In Greek churches, especially the smallest and poorest ones... the Eye of God is always seen in the rudimentary decoration on the walls. It is enclosed within a triangle and its yellow colour expresses the idea of gold. It is surrounded by black eyelashes, which remind one of the legs of some kind of monstrous insect. It has an enormous, black, unreflecting pupil which is fixed in the centre of the white of the eye. The idea of this divine and persecuting optical instrument had attained an almost physical reality for me. What effects has this childhood obsession with the Eye of God had on my psychological and mental life? Most certainly the effects have been profound and indelible since, in many of my literary images, but especially in my pictures, the theme of the Eye recurs so insistently…”.
(Alberto Savinio)

A rare, special feature of the canvas is its hexagonal shape, with “trimmed” upper corners that seem to allude to the famous “Annunciazione” [“Annunciation”] of 1932, where only the upper left corner is cut; a further similarity is the disproportionately large face observing the scene.