Metaphysical painting

The movement began in 1910 with de Chirico, whose dreamlike works with sharp contrasts of light and shadow often had a vaguely threatening, mysterious quality, "painting that which cannot be seen".

[2] His painting The Enigma of an Autumn Afternoon (c. 1910) is considered his first Metaphysical work; it was inspired by what de Chirico called a "revelation" that he experienced in Piazza Santa Croce in Florence.

[3] In subsequent works he developed disquieting images of deserted squares, often bordered by steeply receding arcades shown in a raking light.

[5] Between the two World Wars in Italy there were numerous architectural vulgarisations of the metaphysical poetics of the "Piazza d'Italia", whose timeless atmosphere seemed to be congenial to the propaganda needs of the time.

Squares of metaphysical flavor were built in the historical centers, as in Brescia or Varese, or in newly founded cities, such as those of the Agro Pontino (Sabaudia, Aprilia), to culminate in the spectacular unfinished EUR in Rome.