No Italian painter of this century has aroused so much comment, from eulogy to outright condemnation, as Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978). One of the initiators of surrealism, he is a key figure in modern art; his influence on later painters, particularly during his metaphysical period, is second only to Picasso's. De Chirico relied on imagery from the unconscious to create art with mythological, philosophical, and historical overtones.