NOTE: Appendices A and B are translations of manuscripts
written by de Chirico during his first Paris period, 1911--1915.

What impressionism should be:

A building, a garden, a statue, a person--each makes an
impression upon us. The problem is to reproduce this im-
pression in the most faithful possible fashion. Several paint-
ers have been called impressionists who at bottom were not.
In my opinion there is no point in using technical means
(divisionism, pointillism, etc.) to try to give the illusion of
what we call truth. For example, to paint a sunlit landscape
trying in every way to give the sensation of light. Why? I too
see the light; however well it may be reproduced, I also see
it in nature, and a painting that has this for its purpose will
never be able to give me the sensation of something new, of
something that, previously, I have not known. While if a
man faithfully reproduces the strange sensations that he
feels, this can always give new joys to any sensitive and
intelligent person.

Impressionism and sensationalism: Those French impression-
ist painters whom I would rather call sensationalists follow
an excellent path. I believe thay are far ahead of the poets
and writers who are their contemporaries. In any case there
is much more novelty in what they do than in the whole of
modern literature. I am talking of their work in so far as
I compare it with the impression that modern painting as
a whole makes on me. However I must add that though the
road they follow is a good one, it is absolutely opposed to
the one I follow, for I believe that one must never forget
that a picture must always be the reflection of a profound
sensation, and that profound means strange, and strange
means uncommon or altogether unknown. Well, what is the
impressionist method of procedure: they see something: a
landscape, a figure, a still life; then using a certain technique
to imitate what they see, they try to give to whoever looks
at their painting a sensation which what they have reproduced
could not give if it were seen in nature. Thus M. Cézanne,
in painting a still life--a napkin with big squares, and some
tomatoes or fruits--succeeds in giving us a sensation which
could not be given by all the still lifes of the museums in
which the fruits and vegetables are much truer--in the
meaning generally given to truth, of course. It is a fact that
this kind of painting is better than what is done generally;
nevertheless, there are unfortunately limits to this, and
besides, if one is sincere one must admit that in such a con-
ception of art chance often, not to say always, plays a large
role in what the painter does.

In my way of thinking and working, the problem is differ-
ent. Revelation always plays the principal role. A picture
reveals itself to us, while the sight of something does not
reveal a picture; but in this case the picture will not be a
faithful copy of that which has caused its revelation, but will
resemble it vaguely, as the face of someone seen in a dream
resembles that person in reality. And in all this, technique
plays no role; the whole sensation will be given by the linear
composition of the picture, which in this case always gives
the impression of being something unchangeable, where
chance has never entered.

A revelation can be born of a sudden, when one least expects
it, and also can be stimulated by the sight of something--a
building, a street, a garden, a square, etc. In the first instance
it belongs to a class of strange sensations which I have
observed in only one man: Nietzsche. When Nietzsche talks
of how Zarathustra was conceived, and says: "I was surpris-
ed by Zarathustra," in this participle--surprised, is con-
tained the whole enigma of sudden revelation.--When [on
the other hand] a revelation grows out of the sight of an
arrangement of objects, then the work which appears in our
thoughts is closely linked with the circumstance that has
provoked its birth. One resembles the other, but in a very
strange way, like the resemblance there is between two
brothers, or rather between the image of someone we know
seen in a dream, and that person in reality; it is, and at the
same time it is not, that same person; it is as if there had
been a slight and mysterious transfiguration of the features.
I believe and have faith that, from certain points of view,
the sight of someone in a dream is proof of his metaphysical
reality--in certain accidental occurences that sometimes
happen to us; in the manner and the arrangement that things
appear to us and awaken in us unknown sensations of joy
and surprise: the sensations of revelation. Paris

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