Alberto Savinio facts for kids

Alberto Savinio, a talented artist and writer.

Alberto Savinio was born Andrea Francesco Alberto de Chirico on August 25, 1891. He was an amazing Italian artist who did many things: he was a writer, painter, musician, journalist, and even designed sets for plays. He was the younger brother of Giorgio de Chirico, a famous painter known for his "metaphysical" art. Savinio's work often explored big ideas about life and the mind.

Throughout his life, Savinio created five operas and wrote at least forty-seven books. These included many stories about his own life. He also wrote and produced many plays for the theater. His work sometimes got mixed reviews because he used new and modern art styles. He was friends with and influenced by famous artists like Guillaume Apollinaire, Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob, and Fernand Léger. He also had a big impact on the surrealist art movement.

Life Story

Early Years and Family

Andrea De Chirico was born in Athens, Greece. He was the third child of Evaristo and Gemma De Chirico. His parents were Italian but lived in Greece because his father worked on the railway system there. His older brother, Giorgio de Chirico, became a very famous artist. Andrea also had an older sister named Adele who sadly died before he was born. Later in life, Andrea felt that being born in a foreign country gave him a special chance to choose his own path.

Growing Up and Learning

Andrea mostly learned at home from his mother while living in Greece. He often felt his father was very strict about his education. Because of this, Andrea grew to love Greece even more. From a young age, he was fascinated by the old Greek ruins and culture. These places helped him be creative and use his imagination. He later said that Greece taught him to love critical thinking and irony (a way of saying one thing but meaning the opposite).

Besides homeschooling, Andrea also had a strong musical education. When he was twelve, he finished at the Athens Conservatory. He focused on playing the piano and writing music. When he was fourteen, his father passed away. Andrea wrote a special piece of music, a requiem, to remember him. After this, his family moved back to Italy for a short time. Then they moved again to Munich, Germany. In Germany, Andrea learned piano and composition from a famous musician named Max Reger. While studying with Reger, Andrea wrote his first successful opera, Carmela. Another opera, Il tesoro del Rampsenita, was also written. Carmela quickly caught the attention of composer Pietro Mascagni and music publisher Giulio Ricordi.

By 1911, when Andrea was twenty, his music was popular enough to be performed in public in Munich. That same year, Andrea moved to Paris, France. Paris was a hub for new and modern art movements. There, he became friends with Guillaume Apollinaire, a leading poet and critic. In Paris, Andrea also met many other writers and artists like Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob, and Fernand Léger. He also became interested in the art of mime (acting without words).

In 1914, Andrea chose a new name, Alberto Savinio. He did this partly to stand out from his brother Giorgio, who was becoming very famous. Savinio also started a music movement called Sincerismo that year. This style focused more on dissonance (sounds that clash) and rhythm instead of traditional harmony. That year, he also published Les Chants de la mi-mort (The Songs of Half-Death). This was a dramatic poem with his own drawings and piano music. It was mostly in French but had some Italian parts. The poem was about sleep, which he called "The Half Death," and featured strange, toy-like characters. His description of a faceless dummy in this poem later became a common image in Giorgio de Chirico's paintings.

World War I and Beyond

Soon after World War I began, Savinio and his brother went back to Italy to join the army. They were sent to a military hospital in Ferrara, Italy. There, they met Carlo Carrà. These three artists, influenced by Giovanni Papini, then started an art movement called Scuola Metafisica (Metaphysical Painting). This became one of the most important art movements in Italy in the 1900s. In 1917, Savinio went to Greece as an interpreter for Italian soldiers. Being there allowed him to revisit the Greece of his childhood. This experience influenced his first published novel, Hermaphrodito.

Hermaphrodito came out in 1918. Like Les Chants de la mi-mort, it mixed different languages, and also combined prose (normal writing) and poetry. Hermaphrodito was also a mix of autobiography, fiction, thoughts, and dreams. Some even called it a war journal because it talked about his experiences in World War I. Savinio felt a very strong personal connection to this novel. He once said, "Everything that I am springs from there. Everything that I have done comes from there." After the war, Savinio moved to Rome.

Middle Years of Creativity

In 1920, Savinio finished Tragedia dell'infanzia (Tragedy of Childhood). This book was mostly about his own life. It showed how adults and children see the world differently. Each story in the book compared the adult world of art with the imaginative world of childhood. Tragedia dell'infanzia was finally published in 1937.

In 1924, his ballet Perseus was performed by the Metropolitan Opera of New York. In 1925, his second novel, La Casa Ispirata (The Haunted House), was published. Set in Paris in 1910, it tells the story of a narrator renting a room in a seemingly normal house that Savinio says is "inhabited by Ghosts." The novel is a funny but strange look at modern life. Its scenes are both very real and dreamlike, focusing on the unconscious mind.

This year also marked the start of his work with his brother at Pirandello's Teatro d'Arte in Rome. Theater was a favorite art form for Savinio because it combined visual art, music, and language. Savinio was involved in every part of theater, from writing plays to designing sets. While working there, he wrote Capitan Ulisse, a three-act play considered very important to his work. The play was announced in 1926 but not performed until 1938 due to problems with the theater company. It was published in 1934. Also at the Teatro d'Arte, Savinio met Maria Morino, and they got married the next year.

In 1926, Savinio went back to Paris and started painting seriously. In 1927, he had his first art show as a painter at the Bernheim Gallery in Paris. Savinio's modern art during this time was very different from the more traditional art favored by the government in Italy. Angelica o la Notte di Maggio (Angelica or the Night in May) was also published this year. This novel was a funny and surreal retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Eros and Psyche. It tells the story of Angelica, a poor actress, and Baron Felix von Rothspeer, an older nobleman. Savinio made the theater a main character in the story, showing it as a place where feelings and romance could be deeply explored.

In 1928, Savinio's daughter, Angelica, was born in Paris. His son, Ruggero, was born in 1934. Both children were named after characters from Ludovico Ariosto's famous poem Orlando Furioso. During this time, Savinio mostly focused on writing about literature, music, and art.

Later Life and Passing

Infanzia di Nivasio Dolcemare (The Childhood of Nivasio Dolcemare) was published in 1941. This book is still seen as one of Savinio's best novels. It has a clever and engaging style, telling a fictional story about his childhood in Athens. (Nivasio is an anagram, or mixed-up letters, of Savinio). In 1950, two more of Savinio's operas, Orfeo vedova and Agenzia Fix, were published. Savinio finished his fifth and final opera, Cristoforo Colombo, which was made for radio, shortly before he passed away on May 5, 1952, in Rome, Italy.

Choosing His Own Path

Alberto Savinio chose his pen name from Albert Savine, a less known French writer and translator. Savinio picked this name partly because Savine was not very famous. Savinio believed that choosing a pen name allowed him to decide his own destiny. For him, being an Italian by culture was like a chosen identity. In his novel, Infanzia di Nivasio Dolcemare, Savinio wrote about this idea:

as an Italian born outside of Italy, Nivasio Dolcemare considers himself privileged. This "indirect" birth is an ironic situation, as stylistic solution, a condition that has added certain nuances, certain subtleties, certain half and quarter-tone passages to the national faculties of the man Dolcemare which "direct" birth would not have permitted … . Italian more Italian than the Italian since the "Italian" in him is not a "place of birth", but a condition discovered, wanted, conquered.

This means he felt being Italian was something he chose and worked for, not just something he was born into.

Brotherly Connection

When they were young, Andrea and his brother Giorgio were very close. They even called themselves Castor and Pollux, who were warrior twins in Greek myths. As children, they worked together a lot, which led to similar themes appearing in their art later on. One well-known shared theme was the mythical Greek Argonauts, which they used as a symbol for their journey as artists.

However, there is some evidence that their relationship became strained later in life. Even though their deceased sister Adele is often mentioned in Savinio's writings about his life, Giorgio does not appear in any of them.

How His Work Was Seen

People's opinions of Savinio's work changed a lot depending on the time in his life and who was reviewing it. Many of his most praised works were also some of his most disliked or misunderstood. This was mainly because Savinio often used modern and sometimes controversial art techniques.

From a very young age, Savinio's piano playing impressed almost everyone. Guillaume Apollinaire once said about it:

I was surprised and beguiled; Savinio mistreated his instrument so much that after each piece the keyboard had to be cleared of chips and splinters. I foresee that within two years he will have gutted every piano in Paris. Savinio will then go on to destroy every piano in the universe, which may be a true liberation.

His overall body of work was recognized in 1954. The Venice Biennale, a big art exhibition, dedicated a special room just to Savinio's artistic legacy.

According to art historian Jean Clair, the works of Savinio and his brother Giorgio de Chirico were very important. They helped lay the foundation for both the surrealist movement and magic realism (a style where magical elements appear in a realistic setting).

See Also

In Spanish: Alberto Savinio para niños