The Child's Brain
Giorgio de Chirico, 1914
Image not available: work still under copyright
The Child's Brain is an oil-on-canvas painting by Giorgio de Chirico, completed in 1914 in Italy during his metaphysical period. It shows a young nude man, seen from the waist up, standing behind a table with his eyes closed. His features blend masculine and feminine traits: he has no body hair or defined musculature, yet long eyelashes and carefully groomed eyebrows. The table hides his lower body, and on it lies a yellow book with a red bookmark, which has been read as an allegorical reference to sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. One of the figure's arms is concealed by a Greek column, a device that links the work to classical antiquity, a theme that recurs throughout de Chirico's output. The figure may be a younger version of Dionysus, who appears in later works by the artist. The most common reading holds that the man represents de Chirico's father and that the book alludes to the parents' intimacy, perhaps witnessed by the young painter. The book also covers the pelvic area, which has been interpreted as a visual echo of the fear of castration described by Sigmund Freud, whose studies on psychosexual stages fascinated de Chirico.
- Painter
- Giorgio de Chirico
- Date
- 1914
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Museum
- Moderna Museet, Stockholm Municipality
- Movement
- metaphysical painting