Paesaggio con ruderi, cavalli e cavalieri (bianconero)

Despite its very close iconographic resemblance to the other works by De Chirico in the Bank’s collection bearing the same title “Landscape with Ruins”, this canvas measures 80 x 160 cm and is accordingly much higher than the others. It is possible that it once hung over a doorway, with the other two paintings on either side.
The painting is in grisaille. The artist’s signature is in the lower right-hand corner and the work is dated 1955. The composition centres around a set of ruins that stand in the shadow of ancient archways. In the foreground the artist depicts knights in seventeenth-century costume in various poses.
The open ground, scattered with small stones, grassy mounds and backlit trees, extends towards the wooded hills beyond. The lighting in the picture, with darker elements that frame the vision, creates a sequence of unfolding planes. The meandering, rough brushwork is echoed in the turbulent transit of the clouds, in a play of light and shadow that from the brightest note of sky on the right-hand side (exalted by the contrast with the dark tree) gradually dims among the tempestuous air. Only on the left-hand side of the ruin (as the image becomes more ominous), does the door open to reveal a tenebrous void, while the knights in the foreground joust in the shadows. The dramatic energy of the subject creates a powerful theatrical effect.
There are many similarities between this work and the 1952 sketches for the stage sets of V. Frazzi’s Don Quixote.