Italy's Giorgio de Chirico is the grandpa of a lot of enigmatic modern painting. His empty squares, staring arcades and twisted mannikins have become the common stage properties of surrealism. But De Chirico himself long ago abandoned surrealism for candy-box neoclassicism. So when Turin's Fiat motor corporation wanted to celebrate its golden anniversary, De Chirico seemed just the man to help out with a portrait of the 1950 Fiat "1400."
De Chirico's fee was his model, worth $2,145. In ten days he dashed off a picture in which Pegasus, led by a hero in...
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