Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) Major Italian painter, who founded the metaphysical school. He was born in Volos, Greece, the son of an Italian engineer. He studied art in Athens and in Munich, where he was strongly influenced by the allegorical works of the 19th-century Swiss painter Arnold B cklin. In Turin and Florence and in Paris, where he settled in 1911, he painted deserted cityscapes, ...