The Nostalgia of the Infinite is a painting by the Greek

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

-Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 metaphysical painter

Metaphysical art

Metaphysical art , style of painting that flourished mainly between 1911 and 1920 in the works of the Italian artists Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carrà. The movement began with Chirico, whose dreamlike works with sharp contrasts of light and shadow often had a vaguely threatening, mysterious quality...

 Giorgio de Chirico

Giorgio de Chirico

Giorgio de Chirico was a pre-Surrealist and then Surrealist Italian painter born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father. He founded the scuola metafisica art movement...

.

The subject of the painting is a large tower. The scene is struck by low, angular evening light. In the foreground below the tower are two small shadowy figures resembling those in future works by Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....

. This painting is the most famous example of the tower theme which appears in several of de Chirico’s works.

Although the painting is dated 1911, this date is generally held in question. It has been speculated by the Museum of Modern Art in New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 that it was created from 1912 to 1913 while the Annenberg School for Communication

Annenberg School for Communication

There are two schools named Annenberg School for Communication.*University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism*Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania...

 suggests 1913-14. According to art historian, Robert Hughes, the painting draws inspiration from one of the spectacular architectural landmarks of Turin, the Mole Antonelliana

Mole Antonelliana

The Mole Antonelliana is a major landmark of the Italian city of Turin. It is named for the architect who built it, Alessandro Antonelli. In Italian "Mole" indicates a building of monumental proportions. Construction began in 1863, soon after Italian unification and was completed 26 years later,...

.

This painting, amongst other works by Giorgio de Chirico, influenced the painting by Fumito Ueda

Fumito Ueda

is a video game designer born in Tatsuno, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan in 1970. Ueda is director and lead designer of the PlayStation 2 video games Ico and Shadow of the Colossus....

 for the front cover of the video game Ico

Ico

is an action-adventure game published by Sony Computer Entertainment and released for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It was designed and directed by Fumito Ueda, who wanted to create a minimalist game around a "boy meets girl" concept. Originally planned for the PlayStation, Ico took...

used in the Japanese and European versions of the game.

Source

• The Museum of Modern Art