Giorgio de Chirico ([ˈdʒordʒo deˈkiːriko]; 10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian artist. In the years before World War I, he founded the scuola metafisica art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. After 1919, he became interested in traditional painting techniques, and worked in a neoclassical or neo-Baroque style, while frequently revisiting the metaphysical themes of his earlier work.